lEXLlBRJS 


ESSAYS    IN    IDLENESS 


BY 


AGNES   REPPLIER,   Lixx.Do 


BOSTON   AND    NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON    MIFFLIN    COMPANY 
Cambribge 


COPYRIGHT,   1893  AND    IQ2I,   BY  AGNES  REPPLIER 

ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED  INCLUDING  THE  RIGHT  TO  REPRODUCE 
THIS  BOOK  OR  PARTS  THEREOF  IN  ANY  FORM 


To  AGNES  IRWIN. 


M16203 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

AGRIPPINA 1 

THE  CHILDREN'S  POETS 33 

THE  PRAISES  OF  WAR 65 

LEISURE 94 

WORDS 113 

ENNUI 137 

WIT  AND  HCJMOR 168 

LETTERS 192 

"Leisure"  is  reprinted  from  "Scribner's  Magazine"  by 
permission  of  the  publishers. 


ESSAYS    IN    IDLENESS. 


AGRIPPINA. 

SHE  is  sitting  now  on  my  desk,  and  I  glance 
at  her  with  deference,  mutely  begging  per 
mission  to  begin.  But  her  back  is  turned  to 
me,  and  expresses  in  every  curve  such  fine 
and  delicate  disdain  that  I  falter  and  lose  cour 
age  at  the  very  threshold  of  my  task.  I  have 
long  known  that  cats  are  the  most  contemptu 
ous  of  creatures,  and  that  Agrippina  is  the 
most  contemptuous  of  cats.  The  spirit  of  Bou- 
haki,  the  proud  Theban  beast  that  sat  erect, 
with  gold  earrings  in  his  ears,  at  the  feet  of 
his  master,  King  Hana  ;  the  spirit  of  Muezza, 
whose  slumbers  Mahomet  himself  was  not  bold 
enough  to  disturb  ;  the  spirit  of  Micetto,  Cha 
teaubriand's  ecclesiastical  pet,  dignified  as  a 
cardinal,  and  conscious  ever  that  he  was  the 
gift  of  a  sovereign  pontiff,  —  the  spirits  of  all 


JBSS-AYS  IN  IDLENESS. 


arrogant  cats  that  have  played  scornful  parts  in 
the  world's  great  comedy  look  out  from  Agrip- 
pina's  yellow  eyes,  and  hold  me  in  subjection. 
I  should  like  to  explain  to  her,  if  I  dared, 
that  my  desk  is  small,  littered  with  many 
papers,  and  sadly  overcrowded  with  the  useful 
inutilities  which  affectionate  friends  delight  in 
giving  me  at  Christmas  time.  Sainte-Beuve's 
cat,  I  am  aware,  sat  on  his  desk,  and  roamed 
at  will  among  those  precious  manuscripts 
which  no  intrusive  hand  was  ever  permitted  to 
touch  ;  but  Sainte-Beuve  probably  had  suffi 
cient  space  reserved  for  his  own  comfort  and 
convenience.  I  have  not;  and  Agrippina's 
beautifully  ringed  tail  flapping  across  my  copy 
distracts  my  attention,  and  imperils  the  neat 
ness  of  my  penmanship.  Even  when  she  is 
disposed  to  be  affable,  turns  the  light  of  her 
countenance  upon  me,  watches  with  attentive 
curiosity  every  stroke  I  make,  and  softly,  with 
curved  paw,  pats  my  pen  as  it  travels  over  the 
paper,  —  even  in  these  halcyon  moments, 
though  my  self-love  is  flattered  by  her  conde 
scension,  I  am  aware  that  I  should  work  bet 
ter  and  more  rapidly  if  I  denied  myself  thia 
charming  companionship. 


AGR1PPINA.  3 

But  in  truth  it  is  impossible  for  a  lover  of 
cats  to  banish  these  alert,  gentle,  and  discrimi 
nating  little  friends,  who  give  us  just  enough 
of  their  regard  and  complaisance  to  make  us 
hunger  for  more.  M.  Fee,  the  naturalist,  who 
has  written  so  admirably  about  animals,  and 
who  understands,  as  only  a  Frenchman  can 
understand,  the  delicate  and  subtle  organiza 
tion  of  a  cat,  frankly  admits  that  the  keynote 
of  its  character  is  independence.  It  dwells 
under  our  roof,  sleeps  by  our  fire,  endures  our 
blandishments,  and  apparently  enjoys  our  so 
ciety,  without  for  one  moment  forfeiting  its 
sense  of  absolute  freedom,  without  acknow 
ledging  any  servile  relation  to  the  human  crea 
ture  who  shelters  it.  "  The  cat,"  says  M.  Fee, 
"  will  never  part  with  its  liberty ;  it  will 
neither  be  our  servant,  like  the  horse,  nor  our 
friend,  like  the  dog.  It  consents  to  live  as  our 
guest;  it  accepts  the  home  we  offer  and  the 
food  we  give  ;  it  even  goes  so  far  as  to  solicit 
our  caresses,  but  capriciously,  and  when  it  suits 
its  humor  to  receive  them." 

Rude  and  masterful  souls  resent  this  fine 
self-sufficiency  in  a  domestic  animal,  and  re 
quire  that  it  should  have  no  will  but  theirs, 


4  £88 AYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

no  pleasure  that  does  not  emanate  from  them. 
They  are  forever  prating  of  the  love  and  fidel- 
ity  of  the  dog,  of  the  beast  that  obeys  their 
slightest  word,  crouches  contentedly  for  hours 
at  their  feet,  is  exuberantly  grateful  for  the 
smallest  attention,  and  so  affectionate  that  its 
demonstrations  require  to  be  curbed  rather 
than  encouraged.  All  this  homage  is  pleasing 
to  their  vanity ;  yet  there  are  people,  less  ma 
gisterial  perhaps,  or  less  exacting,  who  believe 
that  true  friendship,  even  with  an  animal,  may 
be  built  upon  mutual  esteem  and  independence  ; 
that  to  demand  gratitude  is  to  be  unworthy  of 
it ;  and  that  obedience  is  not  essential  to  agree 
able  and  healthy  intercourse.  A  man  who 
owns  a  dog  is,  in  every  sense  of  the  word,  its 
master ;  the  term  expresses  accurately  their 
mutual  relations.  But  it  is  ridiculous  when 
applied  to  the  limited  possession  of  a  cat.  I 
am  certainly  not  Agrippina's  mistress,  and  the 
assumption  of  authority  on  my  part  would  be 
a  mere  empty  dignity,  like  those  swelling  titles 
which  afford  such  innocent  delight  to  the 
Freemasons  of  our  severe  republic.  If  I  call 
Agrippina,  she  does  not  come  ;  if  I  tell  her  to 
go  away,  she  remains  where  she  is;  if  I  try  to 


AGRIPPINA.  5 

persuade  her  to  show  off  her  one  or  two  little 
accomplishments,  she  refuses,  with  courteous 
but  unswerving  decision.  She  has  frolicsome 
moods,  in  which  a  thimble,  a  shoe-buttoner,  a 
scrap  of  paper,  or  a  piece  of  string  will  drive 
her  wild  with  delight ;  she  has  moods  of  inflexi 
ble  gravity,  in  which  she  stares  solemnly  at  her 
favorite  ball  rolling  over  the  carpet,  without 
stirring  one  lazy  limb  to  reach  it.  "  Have  I 
seen  this  foolish  toy  before  ?  "  she  seems  to  be 
asking  herself  with  musing  austerity ;  "  and 
can  it  be  possible  that  there  are  cats  who  run 
after  such  frivolous  trifles?  Vanity  of  vani 
ties,  and  all  is  vanity,  save  only  to  lie  upon 
the  hearth-rug,  and  be  warm,  and  '  think  grave 
thoughts  to  feed  a  serious  soul.' '  In  such 
moments  of  rejection  and  humiliation,  I  com 
fort  myself  by  recalling  the  words  of  one 
too  wise  for  arrogance.  "  When  I  play  with 
my  cat,"  says  Montaigne,  "  how  do  I  know 
whether  she  does  not  make  a  jest  of  me  ?  We 
entertain  each  other  with  mutual  antics  ;  and 
if  I  have  my  own  time  for  beginning  or  refus 
ing,  she  too  has  hers." 

This  is  the   spirit  in  which  we  should  ap 
proach  a  creature  so  reserved  and  so  utterly 


6  ESSAY'S  IN  IDLENESS. 

self-sufficing  ;  this  is  the  only  key  we  have  to 
that  natural  distinction  of  character  which  re 
pels  careless  and  unobservant  natures.  When 
I  am  told  that  Agrippina  is  disobedient,  un 
grateful,  cold-hearted,  perverse,  stupid,  treach 
erous,  and  cruel,  I  no  longer  strive  to  check 
the  torrent  of  abuse.  I  know  that  Buffon  said 
all  this,  and  much  more,  about  cats,  and  that 
people  have  gone  on  repeating  it  ever  since, 
principally  because  these  spirited  little  beasts 
have  remained  just  what  it  pleased  Providence 
to  make  them,  have  preserved  their  primitive 
freedom  through  centuries  of  effete  and  demor 
alizing  civilization.  Why,  I  wonder,  should  a 
great  many  good  men  and  women  cherish  an 
unreasonable  grudge  against  one  animal  be 
cause  it  does  not  chance  to  possess  the  precise 
qualities  of  another  ?  "  My  dog  fetches  my 
slippers  for  me  every  night,"  said  a  friend 
triumphantly,  not  long  ago.  "  He  puts  them 
first  to  warm  by  the  fire,  and  then  brings  them 
over  to  my  chair,  wagging  his  tail,  and  as 
proud  as  Punch.  Would  your  cat  do  as  much 
for  you,  I  'd  like  to  know  ?  "  Assuredly  not ! 
If  I  waited  for  Agrippina  to  fetch  me  shoes  or 
slippers,  I  should  have  no  other  resource  save 


AGRTPPINA.  1 

to  join  as  speedily  as  possible  one  of  the  bare 
footed  religious  orders  of  Italy.  But,  after  all, 
fetching  slippers  is  not  the  whole  duty  of  do 
mestic  pets.  As  La  Fontaine  gently  reminds 
us  :  — 

"  Tout  animal  n'a  pas  toutes  propri£t&." 

We  pick  no  quarrel  with  a  canary  because  it 
does  not  talk  like  a  parrot,  nor  with  a  parrot 
because  it  does  not  sing  like  a  canary.  We 
find  no  fault  with  a  King  Charles  spaniel  for 
not  flying  at  the  throat  of  a  burglar,  nor  with 
a  St.  Bernard  because  we  cannot  put  it  in  our 
pocket.  Agrippina  will  never  make  herself 
serviceable,  yet  nevertheless  is  she  of  inestima 
ble  service.  How  many  times  have  I  rested 
tired  eyes  on  her  graceful  little  body,  curled 
up  in  a  ball  and  wrapped  round  with  her  tail 
like  a  parcel ;  or  stretched  out  luxuriously  on 
my  bed,  one  paw  coyly  covering  her  face,  the 
other  curved  gently  inwards,  as  though  clasp 
ing  an  invisible  treasure  !  Asleep  or  awake, 
in  rest  or  in  motion,  grave  or  gay,  Agrippina 
is  always  beautiful;  and  it  is  better  to  be 
beautiful  than  to  fetch  and  carry  from  the 
rising  to  the  setting  of  the  sun.  She  is  droll, 
too,  with  an  unconscious  humor,  even  in  her 


8  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

most  serious  and  sentimental  moods.  She  has 
quite  the  longest  ears  that  ever  were  seen  on  so 
small  a  cat,  eyes  more  solemn  than  Athene's 
owl  blinking  in  the  sunlight,  and  an  air  of 
supercilious  disdain  that  would  have  made 
Diogenes  seem  young  and  ardent  by  her  side. 
Sitting  on  the  library  table,  under  the  evening 
lamp,  with  her  head  held  high  in  air,  her  tall 
ears  as  erect  as  chimneys,  and  her  inscrutable 
gaze  fixed  on  the  darkest  corner  of  the  room, 
Agrippina  inspires  in  the  family  sentiments  of 
mingled  mirthfulness  and  awe.  To  laugh  at 
her  in  such  moments,  however,  is  to  incur  her 
supreme  displeasure.  I  have  known  her  to 
jump  down  from  the  table,  and  walk  haugh 
tily  out  of  the  room,  because  of  a  single  half- 
suppressed  but  wholly  indecorous  giggle. 

Schopenhauer  has  said  that  the  reason  do 
mestic  pets  are  so  lovable  and  so  helpful  to 
us  is  because  they  enjoy,  quietly  and  placidly, 
the  present  moment.  Life  holds  no  future  for 
them,  and  consequently  no  care  ;  if  they  are 
content,  their  contentment  is  absolute ;  and 
our  jaded  and  wearied  spirits  find  a  natural 
relief  in  the  sight  of  creatures  whose  little  cups 
of  happiness  can  so  easily  be  filled  to  the  brim 


AGRIPPINA.  9 

Walt  Whitman  expresses  the  same  thought 
more  coarsely  when  he  acknowledges  that  he 
loves  the  society  of  animals  because  they  do 
not  sweat  and  whine  over  their  condition,  nor 
lie  awake  in  the  dark  and  weep  for  their  sins, 
nor  sicken  him  with  discussions  of  their  duty. 
In  truth,  that  admirable  counsel  of  Sydney 
Smith's,  "  Take  short  views  of  life,"  can  be 
obeyed  only  by  the  brutes ;  for  the  thought 
that  travels  even  to  the  morrow  is  long  enough 
to  destroy  our  peace  of  mind,  inasmuch  as  we 
know  not  what  the  morrow  may  bring  forth. 
But  when  Agrippina  has  breakfasted,  and 
washed,  and  sits  in  the  sunlight  blinking  at 
me  with  affectionate  contempt,  I  feel  soothed 
by  her  absolute  and  unqualified  enjoyment.  I 
know  how  full  my  day  will  be  of  things  that  I 
don't  want  particularly  to  do,  and  that  are  not 
particularly  worth  doing ;  but  for  her,  time 
and  the  world  hold  only  this  brief  moment  of 
contentment.  Slowly  the  eyes  close,  gently 
the  little  body  is  relaxed.  Oh,  you  who  strive 
to  relieve  your  overwrought  nerves,  and  cul 
tivate  power  through  repose,  watch  the  ex 
quisite  languor  of  a  drowsy  cat,  and  despair 
of  imitating  such  perfect  and  restful  grace! 


10  ASSAYS   IN  IDLENESS. 

There  is  a  gradual  yielding  of  every  muscle  to 
the  soft  persuasiveness  of  slumber ;  the  flexi 
ble  frame  is  curved  into  tender  lines,  the  head 
nestles  lower,  the  paws  are  tucked  out  of  sight ; 
no  convulsive  throb  or  start  betrays  a  rebel 
lious  alertness ;  only  a  faint  quiver  of  uncon 
scious  satisfaction,  a  faint  heaving  of  the  tawny 
sides,  a  faint  gleam  of  the  half-shut  yellow 
eyes,  and  Agrippina  is  asleep.  I  look  at  her 
for  one  wistful  moment,  and  then  turn  reso 
lutely  to  my  work.  It  were  ignoble  to  wish 
myself  in  her  place,  and  yet  how  charming  to 
be  able  to  settle  down  to  a  nap,  sans  peur  et 
sans  reproche,  at  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning ! 

These,  then,  are  a  few  of  the  pleasures  to  be 
derived  from  the  society  of  an  amiable  cat ; 
and  by  an  amiable  cat  I  mean  one  that,  while 
maintaining  its  own  dignity  and  delicate  re 
serve,  is  nevertheless  affable  and  condescend 
ing  in  the  company  of  human  beings.  There 
is  nothing  I  dislike  more  than  newspaper  and 
magazine  stories  about  priggish  pussies  —  like 
the  children  in  Sunday-school  books  —  that 
share  their  food  with  hungry  beasts  from  the 
back  alleys,  and  show  touching  fidelity  to  old 
blind  masters,  and  hunt  partridges,  in  a  spirit 


AGRIPPTNA.  11 

of  noble  self-sacrifice,  for  consumptive  mis 
tresses,  and  scorn  to  help  themselves  to  delica 
cies  from  the  kitchen  tables,  and  arouse  their 
households  so  often  in  cases  of  fire  that  I 
should  suspect  them  of  starting  the  conflagra 
tions  in  order  to  win  applause  by  giving  the 
alarm.  Whatever  a  real  cat  may  or  may  not 
be,  it  is  never  a  prig,  and  all  true  lovers  of  the 
race  have  been  quick  to  recognize  and  appre 
ciate  this  fact. 

"  I  value  in  the  cat,"  says  Chateaubriand, 
"  that  independent  and  almost  ungrateful  tem 
per  which  prevents  it  from  attaching  itself  to 
any  one  ;  the  indifference  with  which  it  passes 
from  the  salon  to  the  housetop.  When  you 
caress  it,  it  stretches  itself  out  and  arches  its 
back  responsively ;  but  that  is  caused  by  phy 
sical  pleasure,  and  not,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
dog,  by  a  silly  satisfaction  in  loving  and  being 
faithful  to  a  master  who  returns  thanks  in 
kicks.  The  cat  lives  alone,  has  no  need  of 
society,  does  not  obey  except  when  it  likes,  pre 
tends  to  sleep  that  it  may  see  the  more  clearly, 
and  scratches  everything  that  it  can  scratch." 

Here  is  a  sketch  spirited  enough,  and  of  good 
outline,  but  hardly  correct  in  detail.  A  cat 


12  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

seldom  manifests  affection,  yet  is  often  dis 
tinctly  social,  and  likes  to  see  itself  the  petted 
minion  of  a  family  group.  Agrippina,  in  f act> 
so  far  from  living  alone,  will  not,  if  she  can 
help  it,  remain  for  a  moment  in  a  room  by  her 
self.  She  is  content  to  have  me  as  a  compan 
ion,  perhaps  in  default  of  better;  but  if  I 
go  upstairs  or  downstairs  in  search  of  a  book, 
or  my  eyeglasses,  or  any  one  of  the  countless 
things  that  are  never  where  they  ought  to  be, 
Agrippina  follows  closely  at  my  heels.  Some 
times,  when  she  is  fast  asleep,  I  steal  softly 
out  of  the  door,  thinking  to  escape  her  vigi 
lance  ;  but  before  I  have  taken  a  dozen  steps 
she  is  under  my  feet,  mewing  a  gentle  re 
proach,  and  putting  on  all  the  injured  airs  of 
a  deserted  Ariadne.  I  should  like  to  think 
such  behavior  prompted  by  affection  rather 
than  by  curiosity  ;  but  in  my  candid  moments 
I  find  this  "  pathetic  fallacy  "  a  difficult  sen 
timent  to  cherish.  There  are  people,  I  am 
aware,  who  trustfully  assert  that  their  pets 
love  them;  and  one  such  sanguine  creature 
has  recently  assured  the  world  that  "  no  man 
who  boasts  the  real  intimacy  and  confidence 
of  a  cat  would  dream  of  calling  his  four-footed 


AGRIPPINA.  13 

friend  '  puss. '  But  is  not  such  a  boast 
rather  ill-timed  at  best  ?  How  dare  any  man 
venture  to  assert  that  he  possesses  the  intimacy 
and  confidence  of  an  animal  so  exclusive  and 
so  reserved  ?  I  doubt  if  Cardinal  Wolsey,  in 
the  zenith  of  his  pride  and  power,  claimed  the 
intimacy  and  confidence  of  the  superb  cat  who 
sat  in  a  cushioned  armchair  by  his  side,  and 
reflected  with  mimic  dignity  the  full-blown 
honors  of  the  Lord  High  Chancellor  of  Eng 
land.  Agrippina,  I  am  humbly  aware,  grants 
me  neither  her  intimacy  nor  her  confidence, 
but  only  her  companionship,  which  I  endeavor 
to  receive  modestly,  and  without  flaunting  my 
favors  to  the  world.  She  is  displeased  and 
even  downcast  when  I  go  out,  and  she  greets 
my  return  with  delight,  thrusting  her  little 
gray  head  between  the  banisters  the  instant 
I  open  the  house  door,  and  waving  a  welcome 
in  mid-air  with  one  ridiculously  small  paw. 
Being  but  mortal,  I  am  naturally  pleased  with 
these  tokens  of  esteem,  but  I  do  not,  on  that 
account,  go  about  with  arrogant  brow,  and 
boast  of  my  intimacy  with  Agrippina.  I 
should  be  laughed  at,  if  I  did,  by  everybody 
who  is  privileged  to  possess  and  appreciate  a 
cat. 


14  JESS  AYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

As  for  curiosity,  that  vice  which  the  Abbe 
Galiani  held  to  be  unknown  to  animals,  but 
which  the  more  astute  Voltaire  detected  in 
every  little  dog  that  he  saw  peering  out  of  the 
window  of  its  master's  coach,  it  is  the  ruling 
passion  of  the  feline  breast.  A  closet  door  left 
ajar,  a  box  with  half -closed  lid,  an  open  bureau 
drawer,  — these  are  the  objects  that  fill  a  cat 
with  the  liveliest  interest  and  delight.  Agrip- 
pina  watches  breathlessly  the  unfastening  of 
a  parcel,  and  tries  to  hasten  matters  by  clutch 
ing  actively  at  the  string.  When  its  contents 
are  shown  her,  she  examines  them  gravely, 
and  then,  with  a  sigh  of  relief,  settles  down  to 
repose.  The  slightest  noise  disturbs  and  irri 
tates  her  until  she  discovers  its  cause.  If  she 
hears  a  footstep  in  the  hall,  she  runs  out  to 
see  whose  it  is,  and,  like  certain  troublesome 
little  people  I  have  known,  she  dearly  loves 
to  go  to  the  front  door  every  time  the  bell 
is  rung.  From  my  window  she  surveys  the 
street  with  tranquil  scrutiny,  and,  if  boys  are 
playing  below,  she  follows  their  games  with  a 
steady,  scornful  stare,  very  different  from  the 
wistful  eagerness  of  a  friendly  dog,  quiver 
ing  to  join  in  the  sport.  Sometimes  the  boys 


AGRIPPINA.  15 

catch  sight  of  her,  and  shout  up  rudely  at  her 
window ;  and  I  can  never  sufficiently  admire 
Agrippina's  conduct  upon  these  trying  occa 
sions,  the  well-bred  composure  with  which  she 
affects  neither  to  see  nor  to  hear  them,  nor 
to  be  aware  that  there  are  such  objectionable 
creatures  as  children  in  the  world.  Some 
times,  too,  the  terrier  that  lives  next  door 
comes  out  to  sun  himself  in  the  street,  and, 
beholding  my  cat  sitting  well  out  of  reach,  he 
dances  madly  up  and  down  the  pavement, 
barking  with  all  his  might,  and  rearing  him 
self  on  his  short  hind  legs,  in  a  futile  attempt 
to  dislodge  her.  Then  the  spirit  of  evil 
enters  Agrippina's  little  heart.  The  win 
dow  is  open,  and  she  creeps  to  the  extreme 
edge  of  the  stone  sill,  stretches  herself  at  full 
length,  peers  down  smilingly  at  the  frenzied 
dog,  dangles  one  paw  enticingly  in  the  air, 
and  exerts  herself  with  quiet  malice  to  drive 
him  to  desperation.  Her  sense  of  humor  is 
awakened  by  his  frantic  efforts,  and  by  her 
own  absolute  security ;  and  not  until  he  is 
spent  with  exertion,  and  lies  panting  an<' 
exhausted  on  the  bricks,  does  she  arch  her 
graceful  back,  stretch  her  limbs  lazily  in  the 


16  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

sun,  and  with  one  light  bound  spring  from  the 
window  to  my  desk.  Wisely  has  Moncrif 
observed  that  a  cat  is  not  merely  diverted  by 
everything  that  moves,  but  is  convinced  that 
all  nature  is  occupied  exclusively  with  cater 
ing  to  her  diversion. 

There  is  a  charming  story  told  by  M. 
Champfleury,  who  has  written  so  much  and  so 
admirably  about  cats,  of  a  poor  hermit  whose 
piety  and  asceticism  were  so  great  that  in  a 
vision  he  was  permitted  to  behold  his  place 
in  heaven,  next  to  that  of  St.  Gregory,  the 
sovereign  pontiff  of  Christendom.  The  her 
mit,  who  possessed  nothing  upon  earth  but  a 
female  cat,  was  abashed  by  the  thought  that  in 
the  next  world  he  was  destined  to  rank  with 
so  powerful  a  prince  of  the  Church  ;  and  per 
haps —  for  who  knows  the  secret  springs  of 
spiritual  pride  ?  —  he  fancied  that  his  self- 
inflicted  poverty  would  win  for  him  an  even 
higher  reward.  Whereupon  a  second  revela 
tion  made  known  to  him  that  his  detachment 
from  the  world  was  by  no  means  so  complete 
as  he  imagined,  for  that  he  loved  and  valued 
his  cat,  the  sole  companion  of  his  solitude, 
more  than  St.  Gregory  loved  and  valued  all 


AGRIPPINA  17 

his   earthly    possessions.     The    Pope    on    his 
throne  was  the  truer  ascetic  of  the  two. 

This  little  tale  conveys  to  us,  in  addition 
to  its  excellent  moral,  —  never  more  needed 
than  at  present,  —  a  pleasing  truth  concern 
ing  the  lovability  of  cats.  While  they  have 
never  attained,  and  never  deserve  to  attain, 
the  widespread  and  somewhat  commonplace 
popularity  of  dogs,  their  fascination  is  a 
more  potent  and  irresistible  charm.  He 
who  yields  himself  to  the  sweet  seductiveness 
of  a  cat  is  beguiled  forever  from  the  simple, 
honorable  friendship  of  the  more  generous 
and  open-hearted  beast.  The  small  domestic 
sphinx  whose  inscrutable  eyes  never  soften 
with  affection  ;  the  fetich  animal  that  comes 
down  to  us  from  the  far  past,  adored,  hated, 
and  feared,  —  a  god  in  wise  and  silent  Egypt, 
a  plaything  in  old  Rome,  a  hunted  and  un 
holy  creature,  suffering  one  long  martyrdom 
throughout  the  half -seen,  dimly-fathomed  Mid 
dle  Ages,  —  even  now  this  lovely,  uncanny 
pet  is  capable  of  inspiring  mingled  sentiments 
of  horror  and  devotion.  Those  who  are  under 
its  spell  rejoice  in  their  thralldom,  and,  like 
M.  Champfleury's  hermit,  grow  strangely  wed- 


18  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

ded  to  this  mute,  unsympathetic  comradeship. 
Those  who  have  inherited  the  old,  half-fear 
ful  aversion  render  a  still  finer  tribute  to  the 
cat's  native  witchery  and  power.  I  have  seen 
middle-aged  women,  of  dignified  and  tranquil 
aspect,  draw  back  with  unfeigned  dismay  at 
the  sight  of  Agrippina,  a  little  ball  of  gray 
and  yellow  fur,  curled  up  in  peaceful  slum 
ber  on  the  hearth  rug.  And  this  instinctive 
shrinking  has  nothing  in  common  with  the 
perfectly  reasonable  fear  we  entertain  for  a 
terrier  snapping  and  snarling  at  our  heels, 
or  for  a  mastiff  the  size  of  a  calf,  which  our 
friend  assures  us  is  as  gentle  as  a  baby,  but 
which  looks  able  and  ready  to  tear  us  limb 
from  limb.  It  may  be  ignominious  to  be 
afraid  of  dogs,  but  the  emotion  is  one  which 
will  bear  analysis  and  explanation  ;  we  know 
exactly  what  it  is  we  fear ;  while  the  uneasi 
ness  with  which  many  people  behold  a  harm 
less  and  perfectly  indifferent  cat  is  a  faint 
reflection  of  that  superstitious  terror  which 
the  nineteenth  century  still  borrows  occasion 
ally  from  the  ninth.  We  call  it  by  a  differ 
ent  name,  and  account  for  it  on  purely  natural 
principles,  in  deference  to  progress;  but  the 


AGRIPPINA.  19 

Mediaeval  peasant  who  beheld  his  cat  steal 
out,  like  a  gray  shadow,  on  St.  John's  Eve,  to 
join  in  unholy  rites,  felt  the  same  shuddering 
abhorrence  which  we  witness  and  wonder  at 
to-day.  He  simplified  matters  somewhat,  and 
eased  his  troubled  mind  by  killing  the  beast ; 
for  cats  that  ventured  forth  on  the  feast  of 
St.  John,  or  on  Halloween,  or  on  the  second 
Wednesday  in  Lent,  did  so  at  their  peril. 
Fires  blazed  for  them  in  every  village,  and 
even  quiet  stay-at-homes  were  too  often  hunted 
from  their  chimney-corners  to  a  cruel  death. 
There  is  a  receipt  signed  in  1575  by  one 
Lucas  Pommoreux,  —  abhorred  forever  be  his 
name  !  —  to  whom  has  been  paid  the  sum  of  a 
hundred  sols  parisis  "  for  having  supplied  for 
three  years  all  the  cats  required  for  the  fire  on 
St.  John's  Day  ;  "  and  be  it  remembered  that 
the  gracious  child,  afterwards  Louis  XIII., 
interceded  with  Henry  IV.  for  the  lives  of 
these  poor  animals,  sacrificed  to  wicked  sport 
and  an  unreasoning  terror. 

Girt  around  with  fear,  and  mystery,  and  sub 
tle  associations  of  evil,  the  cat  comes  down  to 
us  through  the  centuries  ;  and  from  every  land 
fresh  traditions  of  sorcery  claim  it  for  their 


20  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

own.  In  Brittany  is  still  whispered  the  dread 
ful  tale  of  the  cats  that  danced  with  sacrile 
gious  glee  around  the  crucifix  until  their  king 
was  slain ;  and  in  Sicily  men  know  that  if 
a  black  cat  serves  seven  masters  in  turn  he 
carries  the  soul  of  the  seventh  into  hell.  In 
Russia  black  cats  become  devils  at  the  end  of 
seven  years,  and  in  southern  Europe  they  are 
merely  serving  their  apprenticeship  as  witches. 
Norwegian  folk-lore  is  rich  in  ghastly  stories 
like  that  of  the  wealthy  miller  whose  mill  has 
been  twice  burned  down  on  Whitsun  night, 
and  for  whom  a  traveling  tailor  offers  to  keep 
watch.  The  tailor  chalks  a  circle  on  the  floor, 
writes  the  Lord's  prayer  around  it,  and  waits 
until  midnight,  when  a  troop  of  cats  rush  in, 
and  hang  a  great  pot  of  pitch  over  the  fire 
place.  Again  and  again  they  try  to  overturn 
this  pitch,  but  every  time  the  tailor  frightens 
them  away  ;  and  when  their  leader  endeavors 
stealthily  to  draw  him  outside  of  his  magic 
circle,  he  cuts  off  her  paw  with  his  knife. 
Then  they  all  fly  howling  into  the  night,  and 
the  next  morning  the  miller  sees  with  joy  his 
mill  standing  whole  and  unharmed.  But  the 
miller's  wife  cowers  under  the  bedclothes,  of- 


AGEIPPINA.  21 

fering  her  left  hand  to  the  tailor,  and  hid 
ing  as  best  she  can  her  right  arm's  bleeding 
stump. 

Finer  even  than  this  tale  is  the  well-known 
story  which  "  Monk  "  Lewis  told  to  Shelley  of 
a  gentleman  who,  late  one  night,  went  to  visit 
a  friend  living  on  the  outskirts  of  a  forest  in 
east  Germany.     He  lost  his  path,  and,  after 
wandering  aimlessly  for  some  time,  beheld  at 
last  a  light  streaming  from  the  windows  of  an 
old  and  ruined  abbey.    Looking  in,  he  saw  a 
procession  of  cats  lowering  into  the  grave  a 
small  coffin  with  a  crown  on  it.    The  sight 
filled  him  with  horror,  and,  spurring  his  horse, 
he  rode  away  as  fast  as  he  could,  never  stop 
ping  until    he   reached    his  destination,  long 
after  midnight.      His  friend  was  still  await 
ing  him,  and  at  once  he  recounted  what  had 
happened;  whereupon  a  cat  that  lay  sleeping 
by  the  fire  sprang  to  its  feet,  cried  out,  "  Then 
I  am  the  King  of  the  Cats !  "  arid  disappeared 
like  a  flash  up  the  chimney. 

For  my  part,  I  consider  this  the  best  cat 
story  in  all  literature,  full  of  suggestiveness 
and  terror,  yet  picturesque  withal,  and  leaving 
ample  room  in  the  mind  for  speculation.  Why 


22  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

was  ncrfc  the  heir  apparent  bidden  to  the  royal 
funeral?  Was  there  a  disputed  succession, 
and  how  are  such  points  settled  in  the  myste 
rious  domain  of  cat-land?  The  notion  that 
these  animals  gather  in  ghost-haunted  churches 
and  castles  for  their  nocturnal  revels  is  one 
common  to  all  parts  of  Europe.  We  remem 
ber  how  the  little  maiden  of  the  "  Mountain 
Idyl"  confides  to  Heine  that  the  innocent-look 
ing  cat  in  the  chimney-corner  is  really  a  witch, 
and  that  at  midnight,  when  the  storm  is  high, 
she  steals  away  to  the  ruined  keep,  where  the 
spirits  of  the  dead  wait  spellbound  for  the 
word  that  shall  waken  them.  In  all  scenes 
of  impish  revelry  cats  play  a  prominent  part, 
although  occasionally,  by  virtue  of  their  dual 
natures,  they  serve  as  barriers  against  the 
powers  of  evil.  There  is  the  old  story  of  the 
witch's  cat  that  was  grateful  to  the  good  girl 
who  gave  it  some  ham  to  eat,  —  I  may  observe 
here,  parenthetically,  that  I  have  never  known 
a  cat  that  would  touch  ham,  —  and  there  is  the 
fine  bit  of  Italian  folk-lore  about  the  servant 
maid  who,  with  no  other  protector  than  a  black 
cat,  ventures  to  disturb  a  procession  of  ghosts 
on  the  dreadful  Niffht  of  the  Dead.  "  It  is 


AGRIPPINA.  23 

well  for  you  that  the  cat  lies  in  your  arms," 
the  angry  spirit  says  to  her  ;  "  otherwise  what 
I  am,  you  also  would  be."  The  last  pale  reflex 
of  a  universal  tradition  I  found  three  years 
ago  in  London,  where  the  bad  behavior  of  the 
Westminster  cats  —  proverbially  the  most  dis 
solute  and  profligate  specimens  of  their  race  — — 
has  given  rise  to  the  pleasant  legend  of  a  coun 
try  house  whither  these  rakish  animals  retire 
for  nights  of  gay  festivity,  and  whence  they 
return  in  the  early  morning,  jaded,  repentant, 
and  forlorn. 

Of  late  years  there  has  been  a  rapid  and 
promising  growth  of  what  disaffected  and  al 
literative  critics  call  the  "  cat  cult,"  and  poets 
and  painters  vie  with  one  another  in  celebrat 
ing  the  charms  of  this  long-neglected  pet. 
Mr.  M.  H.  Spielmann's  beautiful  volume  in 
praise  of  Madame  Henriette  Ronner  and  her 
pictures  is  a  treasure  upon  which  many  an  ar 
dent  lover  of  cats  will  cast  wandering  and  wist 
ful  glances.  It  is  impossible  for  even  the  most 
disciplined  spirit  not  to  yearn  over  these  little 
furry  darlings,  these  gentle,  mischievous,  lazy, 
irresistible  things.  As  for  Banjo,  that  dear 
and  sentimental  kitten,  with  his  head  on  one 


24  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

side  like  Lydia  Languish,  and  a  decorous 
melancholy  suffusing  his  splendid  eyes,  let  any 
obdurate  scorner  of  the  race  look  at  his  loveli 
ness  and  be  converted.  Mrs.  Graham  E.  Tom- 
son's  pretty  anthology,  "  Concerning  Cats," 
is  another  step  in  the  right  direction ;  a  dainty 
volume  of  selections  from  French  and  English 
verse,  where  we  may  find  old  favorites  like 
Cowper's  "  Retired  Cat "  and  Calverly's  "  Sad 
Memories,"  graceful  epitaphs  on  departed  pus 
sies,  some  delightful  poems  from  Baudelaire, 
and  three,  no  less  delightful,  from  the  pen  of 
Mrs.  Tomson  herself,  whose  preface,  or  "  fore 
word,"  is  enough  to  win  for  her  at  once  the 
friendship  and  sympathy  of  the  elect.  The 
book,  while  it  contains  a  good  deal  that  might 
well  have  been  omitted,  is  necessarily  a  small 
one ;  for  poets,  English  poets  especially,  have 
just  begun  to  sing  the  praises  of  the  cat,  as 
they  have  for  generations  sung  the  praises  of 
the  horse  and  dog.  Nevertheless,  all  English 
literature,  and  all  the  literatures  of  every  land, 
are  full  of  charming  allusions  to  this  friendly 
animal,  —  allusions  the  brevity  of  which  only 
enhances  their  value.  Those  two  delicious 
lines  of  Herrick's,  for  example,  — 


AGRIPPINA.  25 

"  And  the  brisk  mouse  may  feast  herself  with  crumbs, 
Till  that  the  green-eyed  kitling  comes,"  — 

are  worth  the  whole  of  Wordsworth's  solemn 
poem,  "  The  Kitten  and  the  Falling  Leaves." 
What  did  Wordsworth  know  of  the  innate 
vanity,  the  affectation  and  coquetry,  of  kitten- 
hood  ?  He  saw  the  little  beast  gamboling  on 
the  wall,  and  he  fancied  her  as  innocent  as  she 
looked,  —  as  though  any  living  creature  could 
be  as  innocent  as  a  kitten  looks !  With  touch 
ing  simplicity,  he  believed  her  all  unconscious 
of  the  admiration  she  was  exciting  :  — 

"  What  would  little  Tabby  care 
For  the  plaudits  of  the  crowd  ? 
Over  happy  to  be  proud, 
Over  wealthy  in  the  treasure 
Of  her  own  exceeding  pleasure !  " 

Ah,  the  arrant  knavery  of  that  kitten  !  The 
tiny  impostor,  showing  off  her  best  tricks,  and 
feigning  to  be  occupied  exclusively  with  her 
own  infantile  diversion  !  We  can  see  her  now, 
prancing  and  paddling  after  the  leaves,  and 
all  the  while  peeping  out  of  "  the  tail  o'  her 
ee"  at  the  serene  poet  and  philosopher,  and 
waving  her  naughty  tail  in  glee  over  his  con 
fidence  and  condescension. 


26  ESSAYS  2N  IDLENESS. 

Heine's  pretty  lines,  — 

"  And  close  beside  me  the  cat  sits  purring, 

Warming  her  paws  at  the  cheery  gleam  ; 
The  flames  keep  flitting,  and  flicking,  and  whirring ; 
My  mind  is  wrapped  in  a  realm  of  dream,"  — 

find  their  English  echo  in  the  letter  Shelley 
writes  to  Peacock,  describing,  half  wistfully, 
the  shrines  of  the  Penates,  "whose  hymns 
are  the  purring  of  kittens,  the  hissing  of  ket 
tles,  the  long  talks  over  the  past  and  dead,  the 
laugh  of  children,  the  warm  wind  of  summer 
filling  the  quiet  house,  and  the  pelting  storm 
of  winter  struggling  in  vain  for  entrance." 
How  incomplete  would  these  pictures  be,  how 
incomplete  is  any  fireside  sketch,  without  the 
purring  kitten  or  drowsy  cat ! 

"  The  queen  I  am  o'  that  cozy  place; 
As  wi'  ilka  paw  I  dicht  my  face, 
I  sing  an'  purr  wi'  mickle  grace." 

This  is  the  sphinx  of  the  hearthstone,  the  little 
god  of  domesticity,  whose  presence  turns  a 
house  into  a  home.  Even  the  chilly  desolation 
of  a  hotel  may  be  rendered  endurable  by  these 
affable  and  discriminating  creatures ;  for  one 
of  them,  as  we  know,  once  welcomed  Sir  Wal 
ter  Scott,  and  softened  for  him  the  unfamiliar 


AGRIPPINA.  27 

and  unloved  surroundings.  "  There  are  no 
dogs  in  the  hotel  where  I  lodge,"  he  writes  to 
Abbotsford  from  London,  "  but  a  tolerably 
conversable  cat  who  eats  a  mess  of  cream  with 
me  in  the  morning."  Of  course  it  did,  the 
wise  and  lynx-eyed  beast !  I  make  no  doubt 
that,  day  after  day  and  week  after  week,  that 
cat  had  wandered  superbly  amid  the  common 
throng  of  lodgers,  showing  favor  to  none,  and 
growing  cynical  and  disillusioned  by  constant 
contact  with  a  crowd.  Then,  one  morning,  it 
spied  the  noble,  rugged  face  which  neither  man 
nor  beast  could  look  upon  without  loving,  and 
forthwith  tendered  its  allegiance  on  the  spot. 
Only  "  tolerably  conversable  "  it  was,  this 
reserved  and  town-bred  animal;  less  urbane 
because  less  happy  than  the  much-respected 
retainer  at  Abbotsford,  Master  Ilinse  of  Hinse- 
f eld,  whom  Sir  Walter  called  his  friend.  "  Ah, 
mon  grand  ami,  vous  avez  tuc  mon  autre  grand 
ami !  "  he  sighed,  when  the  huge  hound  Nim- 
rod  ended  poor  Ilinse's  placid  career.  And  if 
Scott  sometimes  seems  to  disparage  cats,  as 
when  he  unkindly  compares  Oliver-le-Dain  to 
one,  in  "  Quentin  Durward,"  he  atones  for 
such  indignity  by  the  use  of  the  little  pronoun 


28  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

"  who "  when  writing  of  the  London  puss. 
My  own  habit  is  to  say  "  who  "  on  similar 
occasions,  and  I  am  glad  to  have  so  excellent 
an  authority. 

It  were  an  endless  though  a  pleasant  task  to 
recount  all  that  has  been  said,  and  well  said, 
in  praise  of  the  cat  by  those  who  have  rightly 
valued  her  companionship.  M.  Loti's  Mou- 
moutte  Blanche  and  Moumoutte  Chinoise 
are  well  known  and  widely  beloved,  and  M. 
Theophile  Gautier's  charming  pages  are  too 
familiar  for  comment.  Who  has  not  read  with 
delight  of  the  Black  and  White  Dynasties 
that  for  so  long  ruled  with  gentle  sway  over 
his  hearth  and  heart ;  of  Madame  Theophile, 
who  thought  the  parrot  was  a  green  chicken  ; 
of  Don  Pierrot  de  Navarre,  who  deeply  resented 
his  master's  staying  out  late  at  night ;  of  the 
graceful  and  fastidious  Seraphita ;  the  glut 
tonous  Enjolras ;  the  acute  Bohemian,  Ga- 
vroche  ;  the  courteous  and  well-mannered  Epo- 
nine,  who  received  M.  Gautier's  guests  in  the 
drawing-room  and  dined  at  his  table,  taking 
each  course  as  it  was  served,  and  restraining 
any  rude  distaste  for  food  not  to  her  fancy. 
"  Her  place  was  laid  without  a  knife  and  fork, 


AGRIPPINA.  29 

indeed,  but  with  a  glass,  and  she  went  regu 
larly  through  dinner,  from  soup  to  dessert, 
awaiting  her  turn  to  be  helped,  and  behaving 
with  a  quiet  propriety  which  most  children 
might  imitate  with  advantage.  At  the  first 
stroke  of  the  bell  she  would  appear,  and  when 
I  came  into  the  dining-room  she  would  be  at 
her  post,  upright  on  her  chair,  her  f orepaws  on 
the  edge  of  the  tablecloth ;  and  she  would  pre 
sent  her  smooth  forehead  to  be  kissed,  like  a 
well-bred  little  girl  who  was  affectionately  po 
lite  to  relatives  and  old  people." 

I  have  read  this  pretty  description  several 
times  to  Agrippina,  who  is  extremely  wayward 
and  capricious  about  her  food,  rejecting  plain 
tively  one  day  the  viands  which  she  has  eaten 
with  apparent  enjoyment  the  day  before.  In 
fact,  the  difficulty  of  catering  to  her  is  so  well 
understood  by  tradesmen  that  recently,  when 
the  housemaid  carried  her  on  an  errand  to  the 
grocery,  —  Agrippina  is  very  fond  of  these 
jaunts  and  of  the  admiration  she  excites,  — 
the  grocer,  a  fatherly  man,  with  cats  of  his 
own,  said  briskly,  "  Is  this  the  little  lady  who 
eats  the  biscuits  ?  "  and  presented  her  on  the 
spot  with  several  choice  varieties  from  which 


30  ESS  ATS  IN  IDLENESS. 

to  choose.     She  is  fastidious,  too,  about  the 
way  in  which  her  meals  are  served  ;  disliking 
any  other  dishes  than  her  own,  which  are  of 
blue-and-white  china ;  requiring  that  her  meat 
should  be  cut  up  fine  and  all  the  fat  removed, 
and  that  her  morning  oatmeal  should  be  well 
sugared  and  creamed.    Milk  she  holds  in  scorn. 
My  friends  tell  me  sometimes  that  it  is  not 
the  common  custom  of  cats  to  receive  so  much 
attention   at   table,  and  that   it   is   my  fault 
Agrippina  is  so  exacting ;  but  such  grumblers 
fail  to  take  into  consideration  the  marked  in 
dividuality  that  is  the  charm  of  every  kindly 
treated  puss.     She  differs  from  her  sisters  as 
widely  as  one   woman   differs   from  another, 
and  reveals  varying  characteristics  of  good  and 
evil,  varying  powers  of  intelligence  and  adap 
tation.     She  scales  splendid  heights  of  virtue, 
and,  unlike  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  is  "  singular 
in  offenses."     Even  those  primitive  instincts 
which  we  believe  all  animals  hold  in  common 
are  lost  in  acquired  ethics  and  depravity.     No 
heroism  could  surpass  that  of  the  London  cat 
who  crawled  back  five  times  under  the  stage 
of  the  burning  theatre  to  rescue  her  litter  oi 
kittens,  and,  having  carried  four  of  them  to 


AGRIPP1NA.  31 

safety,  perished  devotedly  with  the  fifth.  On 
the  other  hand,  I  know  of  a  cat  who  drowned 
her  three  kittens  in  a  water-butt,  for  no  reason, 
apparently,  save  to  be  rid  of  them,  and  that 
she  might  lie  in  peace  on  the  hearth  rug,  —  a 
murder  well  planned,  deliberate,  and  cruel. 

"  So  Tiberius  might  have  sat, 
Had  Tiberius  been  a  cat." 

Only  in  her  grace  and  beauty,  her  love  of 
comfort,  her  dignity  of  bearing,  her  courteous 
reserve,  and  her  independence  of  character 
does  puss  remain  immutable  and  unchanged. 
These  are  the  traits  which  win  for  her  the 
warmest  corner  by  the  fire,  and  the  unshaken 
regard  of  those  who  value  her  friendship  and 
aspire  to  her  affection.  These  are  the  traits  so 
subtly  suggested  by  Mrs.  Tomson  in  a  sonnet 
which  every  true  lover  of  cats  feels  in  his  heart 
must  have  been  addressed  to  his  own  particu 
lar  pet :  — 

"  Half  gentle  kindliness,  and  half  disdain, 
Thou  comest  to  my  call,  serenely  suave, 
With  humming  speech  and  gracious  gestures  grave, 
In  salutation  courtly  and  urbane  ; 
Yet  must  I  humble  me  thy  grace  to  gain, 
For  wiles  may  win  thee,  but  no  arts  enslave  ; 


32  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

And  nowhere  gladly  thou  abidest,  save 

Where  naught  disturbs  the  concord  of  thy  reign. 

"  Sphinx  of  my  quiet  hearth !  who  deign' st  to  dwell 
Friend  of  my  toil,  companion  of  mine  ease, 
Thine  is  the  lore  of  Ra  and  Rameses ; 
That  men  forget  dost  thou  remember  well, 
Beholden  still  in  blinking  reveries, 
With  sombre  sea-green  gaze  inscrutable." 


THE  CHILDREN'S   POETS. 

Now  and  then  I  hear  it  affirmed  by  sad- 
voiced  pessimists,  whispering  in  the  gloom, 
that  people  do  not  read  as  much  poetry  in 
our  day  as  they  did  in  our  grandfathers',  that 
this  is  distinctly  the  era  of  prose,  and  that 
the  poet  is  no  longer,  as  Shelley  claimed, 
the  unacknowledged  legislator  of  the  world. 
Perhaps  these  cheerless  statements  are  true, 
though  it  would  be  more  agreeable  not  to 
believe  them.  Perhaps,  with  the  exception 
of  Browning,  whom  we  study  because  he  is 
difficult  to  understand,  and  of  Shakespeare, 
whom  we  read  because  it  is  hard  to  content 
our  souls  without  him,  the  poets  have  slipped 
away  from  our  crowded  lives,  and  are  best 
known  to  us  through  the  medium  of  their 
reviewers.  We  are  always  wandering  from 
the  paths  of  pleasure,  and  this  may  be  one  of 
our  deviations.  Yet  what  matters  it,  after 
all,  while  around  us,  on  every  side,  in  school- 


34  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

rooms  and  nurseries,  in  quiet  corners  and  by 
cheerful  fires,  the  children  are  reading  poetry  ? 
—  reading  it  with  a  joyous  enthusiasm  and  an 
absolute  surrendering  of  spirit  which  we  can 
all  remember,  but  can  never  feel  again.  Well 
might  Sainte-Beuve  speak  bravely  of  the  clear, 
fine  penetration  peculiar  to  childhood.  Well 
might  he  recall,  with  wistful  sighs,  "  that 
instinctive  knowledge  which  afterwards  ripens 
into  judgment,  but  of  which  the  fresh  lu 
cidity  remains  forever  unapproached."  He 
knew,  as  all  critics  have  known,  that  it  is  only 
the  child  who  responds  swiftly,  pliantly,  and 
unreservedly  to  the  allurements  of  the  ima 
gination.  He  knew  that,  when  poetry  is  in 
question,  it  is  better  to  feel  than  to  think ; 
and  that  with  the  growth  of  a  guarded  and 
disciplined  intelligence,  straining  after  the  en 
joyment  which  perfection  in  literary  art  can 
give,  the  first  careless  rapture  of  youth  fades 
into  a  half -remembered  dream. 

If  we  are  disposed  to  doubt  the  love  that 
children  bear  to  poetry,  a  love  concerning 
which  they  exhibit  a  good  deal  of  reticence, 
let  us  consider  only  the  alacrity  with  which 
they  study,  for  their  own  delight,  the  poems 


THE   CHILDREN'S  POETS.  35 

that  please  them  best.  How  should  we  fare, 
I  wonder,  if  tried  by  a  similar  test?  How 
should  we  like  to  sit  down  and  commit  to 
memory  Tennyson's  "  (Enone,  "  or  "  Locksley 
Hall,"  or  Byron's  apostrophe  to  the  Ocean,  or 
the  battle  scene  in  "  Marmion  "  ?  Yet  I  have 
known  children  to  whom  every  word  of  these 
and  many  other  poems  was  as  familiar  as  the 
alphabet ;  and  a  great  deal  more  familiar  — 
thank  Heaven !  —  than  the  multiplication 
table,  or  the  capitals  of  the  United  States.  A 
rightly  constituted  child  may  find  the  paths  of 
knowledge  hopelessly  barred  by  a  single  page 
of  geography,  or  by  a  single  sum  in  fractions  ; 
but  he  will  range  at  pleasure  through  the 
paths  of  poetry,  having  the  open  sesame  to 
every  door.  Sir  Walter  Scott,  who  was  essen 
tially  a  rightly  constituted  child,  did  not  even 
wait  for  a  formal  introduction  to  his  letters, 
but  managed  to  learn  the  ballad  of  Hardy- 
knute  before  he  knew  how  to  read,  and  went 
shouting  it  around  the  house,  warming  his 
baby  blood  to  fighting-point,  and  training 
himself  in  very  infancy  to  voice  the  splendors 
of  his  manhood.  He  remembered  this  ballad, 
too,  and  loved  it  all  his  life,  reciting  it  once 


36  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

with  vast  enthusiasm  to  Lord  Byron,  whose 
awn  unhappy  childhood  had  been  softened 
and  vivified  by  the  same  innocent  delights. 

In  truth,  the  most  charming  thing  about 
youth  is  the  tenacity  of  its  impressions.  If 
we  had  the  time  and  courage  to  study  a  dozen 
verses  to-day,  we  should  probably  forget 
eleven  of  them  in  a  fortnight ;  but  the  poetry 
we  learned  as  children  remains,  for  the  most 
part,  indelibly  fixed  in  our  memories,  and 
constitutes  a  little  Golden  Treasury  of  our 
own,  more  dear  and  valuable  to  us  than  any 
other  collection,  because  it  contains  only  our 
chosen  favorites,  and  is  always  within  the  reach 
of  reference.  Once,  when  I  was  very  young,  I 
asked  a  girl  companion  —  well  known  now  in 
the  world  of  literature  —  if  she  did  not  grow 
weary  waiting  for  trains,  which  were  always 
late,  at  the  suburban  station  where  she  went 
to  school.  "  Oh,  no,"  was  the  cheerful  reply. 
"  If  I  have  no  book,  and  there  is  no  one 
here  to  talk  with,  I  walk  up  and  down  the 
platform  and  think  over  the  poetry  that  I 
know."  Admirable  occupation  for  an  idle 
minute  !  Even  the  tedium  of  railway  travel 
ing  loses  half  its  horrors  if  one  can  withdraw 


THE   CHILDREN'S  POETS.  37 

at  pleasure  into  the  society  of  the  poets  and, 
soothed  by  their  gentle  and  harmonious  voices, 
forget  the  irksome  recurrence  of  familiar 
things. 

It  has  been  often  demonstrated,  and  as 
often  forgotten,  that  children  do  not  need  to 
have  poetry  written  down  to  their  intellectual 
level,  and  do  not  love  to  see  the  stately  Muse 
ostentatiously  bending  to  their  ear.  In  the 
matter  of  prose,  it  seems  necessary  for  them 
to  have  a  literature  of  their  own,  over  which 
they  linger  willingly  for  a  little  while,  as 
though  in  the  sunny  antechamber  of  a  king. 
But  in  the  golden  palace  of  the  poets  there  is 
no  period  of  probation,  there  is  no  enforced 
attendance  upon  petty  things.  The  clear- 
eyed  children  go  straight  to  the  heart  of  the 
mystery,  and  recognize  in  the  music  of  words, 
in  the  enduring  charm  of  metrical  quality,  an 
element  of  never-ending  delight.  When  to 
this  simple  sensuous  pleasure  is  added  the 
enchantment  of  poetic  images,  lovely  and 
veiled  and  dimly  understood,  then  the  deligh' 
grows  sweeter  and  keener,  the  child's  soul 
flowers  into  a  conscious  love  of  poetry,  and 
one  lifelong  source  of  happiness  is  gained. 


38  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

But  it  is  never  through  infantine  or  juvenile 
verses  that  the  end  is  reached.  There  is  no 
poet  dearer  to  the  young  than  Tennyson,  and 
it  was  not  the  least  of  his  joys  to  know  that 
all  over  the  English-speaking  world  children 
were  tuning  their  hearts  to  the  music  of  his 
lines,  were  dreaming  vaguely  and  rapturously 
over  the  beauty  he  revealed.  Therefore  the 
insult  seemed  greater  and  more  wanton  when 
this  beloved  idol  of  our  nurseries  deliberately 
offered  to  his  eager  audience  such  anxiously 
babyish  verses  as  those  about  Minnie  and 
Winnie,  and  the  little  city  maiden  who  goes 
straying  among  the  flowers.  Is  there  in 
Christendom  a  child  who  wants  to  be  told  by 
one  of  the  greatest  of  poets  that 

"  Minnie  and  Winnie 
Slept  in  a  shell ;  " 

that  the  shell  was  pink  within  and  silver  with' 
out ;  and  that 

"  Sounds  of  the  great  sea 
Wandered  about- 

"Two  bright  stars 

Peep'd  into  the  shell. 
*  What  are  they  dreaming  of  ? 
Who  can  tell  ?  ' 


THE  CHILDREN'S  POETS.  39 

"  Started  a  green  linnet 

Out  of  the  croft ; 
4  Wake,  little  ladies, 
The  sun  is  aloft.' " 

It  is  not  in  these  tones  that  poetry  speaks 
to  the  childish  soul,  though  it  is  too  often  in 
this  fashion  that  the  poet  strives  to  adjust 
himself  to  what  he  thinks  is  the  childish 
standard.  He  lowers  his  sublime  head  from 
the  stars,  and  pipes  with  painstaking  flatness 
on  a  little  reed,  while  the  children  wander  far 
away,  and  listen  breathlessly  to  older  and 
dreamier  strains. 

44  She  left  the  web,  she  left  the  loom, 
She  made  three  paces  thro'  the  room, 
She  saw  the  water-lily  bloom, 
She  saw  the  helmet  and  the  plume, 
She  look'd  down  to  Camelot, 
Out  flew  the  web  and  floated  wide  ; 
The  mirror  crack'd  from  side  to  side  ; 
*  The  curse  is  come  upon  me,'  cried 
The  Lady  of  Shalott." 

Here  is  the  mystic  note  that  childhood  loves, 
and  here,  too,  is  the  sweet  constraint  of  linked 
rhymes  that  makes  music  for  its  ears.  How 
many  of  us  can  remember  well  our  early  joy 
in  this  poem,  which  was  but  as  another  and 


40  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

more  exquisite  fairy  tale,  ranking  fitly  with 
Andersen's  "  Little  Mermaid,  "  and  "  Un 
dine,"  and  all  sad  stories  of  unhappy  lives ! 
And  who  shall  forget  the  sombre  passion  of 
"  Oriana,"  of  those  wailing  verses  that  rang 
through  our  little  hearts  like  the  shrill  sob 
bing  of  winter  storms,  of  that  strange  tragedy 
that  oppressed  us  more  with  fear  than  pity ! 

"  When  the  long  dun  wolds  are  ribb'd  with  snow, 
And  loud  the  Norland  whirlwinds  blow, 

Oriana, 
Alone  I  wander  to  and  fro, 

Oriana." 

If  any  one  be  inclined  to  think  that  children 
must  understand  poetry  in  order  to  appreciate 
and  enjoy  it,  that  one  enchanted  line, — 

"  When  the  long  dun  wolds  are  ribb'd  with  snow,"  — 

should  be  sufficient  to  undeceive  him  forever. 
The  spell  of  those  finely  chosen  words  lies  in 
the  shadowy  and  half-seen  picture  they  con 
vey,  —  a  picture  with  indistinct  outlines,  as  of 
an  unknown  land,  where  the  desolate  spirit 
wanders  moaning  in  the  gloom.  The  whole 
poem  is  inexpressibly  alluring  to  an  imagina 
tive  child,  and  its  atmosphere  of  bleak  de 
spondency  darkens  suddenly  into  horror  at 


THE   CHILDREN'S  POETS.  41 

the  breaking  off  of  the  last  line  from  visions 
of  the  grave  and  of  peaceful  death,  — 

"  I  hear  the  roaring  of  the  sea, 
Oriana." 

The  same  grace  of  indistinctness,  though 
linked  with  a  gentler  mood  and  with  a  softer 
music,  makes  the  lullaby  in  "  The  Princess  " 
a  lasting  delight  to  children,  while  the  pretty 
cradle-song  in  "  Sea  Dreams,"  beginning,  — 

"  What  does  little  birdie  say 
In  her  nest  at  peep  of  day  ?  " 

has  never  won  their  hearts.  Its  motive  is  too 
apparent,  its  nursery  flavor  too  pronounced. 
It  has  none  of  the  condescension  of  "  Minnie 
and  Winnie,"  and  grown  people  can  read  it 
with  pleasure ;  but  a  simple  statement  of  ob 
vious  truths,  or  a  simple  line  of  obvious  rea 
soning,  however  dexterously  narrated  in  prose 
or  verse,  has  not  the  art  to  hold  a  youthful 
soul  in  thrall. 

If  it  be  a  matter  of  interest  to  know  what 
poets  are  most  dear  to  the  children  around 
us,  to  the  ordinary  "  apple-eating  "  little  boys 
and  girls  for  whom  we  are  hardly  brave 
enough  to  predict  a  shining  future,  it  is  de 
lightful  to  be  told  by  favorite  authors  and 


42  ESSAYS  JN  IDLENESS. 

by  well-loved  men  of  letters  what  poets  first 
bewitched  their  ardent  infant  minds.  It  is 
especially  pleasant  to  have  Mr.  Andrew  Lang 
admit  us  a  little  way  into  his  confidence,  and 
confess  to  us  that  he  disliked  "  Tarn  O'Shan- 
ter  "  when  his  father  read  it  aloud  to  him;  pre 
ferring,  very  sensibly,  "  to  take  my  warlocks 
and  bogies  with  great  seriousness."  Of  course 
he  did,  and  the  sympathies  of  all  children  are 
with  him  in  his  choice.  The  ghastly  details 
of  that  witches'  Sabbath  are  far  beyond  a 
child's  limited  knowledge  of  demonology  and 
the  Scotch  dialect.  Tarn's  escape  and  Mag 
gie's  final  catastrophe  seem  like  insults  offered 
to  the  powers  of  darkness ;  only  the  humor  of 
the  situation  is  apparent,  and  humor  is  seldom, 
to  the  childish  mind,  a  desirable  element  of 
poetry.  Not  all  the  spirit  of  Caldecott's  illus 
trations  can  make  "  John  Gilpin  "  a  real  fa 
vorite  in  our  nurseries,  while  "  The  Jackdaw  of 
Rheims  "  is  popular  simply  because  children, 
being  proof  against  cynicism,  accept  the  story 
as  it  is  told,  with  much  misplaced  sympathy 
for  the  thievish  bird,  and  many  secret  rejoi 
cings  over  his  restoration  to  grace  and  feath 
ers.  As  for  "  The  Pied  Piper  of  Hamelin," 


TIIE   CHILDREN'S  POETS.  43 

its  humor  is  swallowed  up  in  tragedy,  and  the 
terror  of  what  is  to  come  helps  little  readers 
over  such  sad  stumbling-blocks  as 

"  So  munch  on,  crunch  on,  take  your  nuncheon, 
Breakfast,  dinner,  supper,  luncheon!  " 

lines  which  are  every  whit  as  painful  to  their 
ears  as  to  ours.  I  have  often  wondered  how 
the  infant  Southeys  and  Coleridges,  that 
bright-eyed  group  of  alert  and  charming  chil 
dren,  all  afire  with  romantic  impulses,  received 
"  The  Cataract  of  Lodore,"  when  papa  Southey 
condescended  to  read  it  in  the  schoolroom. 
What  well-bred  efforts  to  appear  pleased  and 
grateful !  What  secret  repulsion  to  a  senseless 
clatter  of  words,  as  remote  from  the  silvery 
sweetness,  the  cadenced  music  of  falling  waters, 
as  from  the  unalterable  requirements  of  poetic 
art! 

*'  And  moreover  he  tasked  me 
To  tell  him  in  rhyme." 

Ah !  unwise  little  son,  to  whose  rash  request 
generations  of  children  have  owed  the  presence, 
in  readers  and  elocution-books  and  volumes  of 
"  Select  Lyrics  for  the  Nursery,"  of  those 
hated  and  hateful  verses. 

"  Poetry  came  to  me  with  Sir  Walter  Scott," 


44  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

says  Mr.  Lang ;  with  "  Marmion,"  and  the 
"Last  Minstrel,"  and  "The  Lady  of  the 
Lake,"  read  "for  the  twentieth  time,"  and 
ever  with  fresh  delight.  Poetry  came  to  Scott 
with  Shakespeare,  studied  rapturously  by  fire 
light  in  his  mother's  dressing-room,  when  all 
the  household  thought  him  fast  asleep,  and  with 
Pope's  translation  of  the  Iliad,  that  royal  road 
over  which  the  Muse  has  stepped,  smiling, 
into  many  a  boyish  heart.  Poetry  came  to 
Pope  —  poor  little  lame  lad  —  with  Spenser's 
"  Faerie  Queene ;  "  with  the  brave  adventures 
of  strong,  valiant  knights,  who  go  forth,  un 
blemished  and  unfrighted,  to  do  battle  with 
dragons  and  "  Paynims  cruel."  And  so  the 
links  of  the  magic  chain  are  woven,  and  child 
hands  down  to  child  the  spell  that  holds  the 
centuries  together.  I  cannot  bear  to  hear  the 
unkind  things  which  even  the  most  tolerant  of 
critics  are  wont  to  say  about  Pope's  "  Iliad," 
remembering  as  I  do  how  many  boys  have  re 
ceived  from  its  pages  their  first  poetic  stimulus, 
their  first  awakening  to  noble  things.  What 
a  charming  picture  we  have  of  Coleridge,  a 
feeble,  petulant  child  tossing  with  fever  on  his 
little  bed,  and  of  his  brother  Francis  stealing 


THE  CHILDREN'S  POETS.  45 

up,  in  defiance  of  all  orders,  to  sit  by  his  side 
and  read  him  Pope's  translation  of  Homer. 
The  bond  that  drew  these  boys  together  was 
forged  in  such  breathless  moments  and  in  such 

O 

mutual  pleasures  ;  for  Francis,  the  handsome, 
spirited  sailor  lad,  who  climbed  trees,  and 
robbed  orchards,  and  led  all  dangerous  sports, 
had  little  in  common  with  his  small,  silent,  pre 
cocious  brother.  "  Frank  had  a  violent  love 
of  beating  me,"  muses  Coleridge,  in  a  tone  of 
mild  complaint  (and  no  wonder,  we  think,  for 
a  more  beatable  child  than  Samuel  Taylor  it 
would  have  been  hard  to  find).  "  But  when 
ever  that  was  superseded  by  any  humor  or 
circumstance,  he  was  very  fond  of  me,  and  used 
to  regard  me  with  a  strange  mixture  of  admira 
tion  and  contempt."  More  contempt  than  ad 
miration,  probably ;  yet  was  all  resentment 
forgotten,  and  all  unkindness  at  an  end,  while 
one  boy  read  to  the  other  the  story  of  Hector 
and  Patroclus,  and  of  great  Ajax,  with  sorrow 
in  his  heart,  pacing  round  his  dead  comrade, 
as  a  tawny  lioness  paces  round  her  young 
when  she  sees  the  hunters  coming  through 
the  woods.  As  a  companion  picture  to  this 
we  have  little  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  playing 


46  ESSAYS  IN  jDLENESS. 

Othello  in  the  nursery,  and  so  carried  away  by 
the  passionate  impulse  of  these  lines,  — 

"  In  Aleppo  once, 

Where  a  malignant  and  a  turban'd  Turk 
Beat  a  Venetian  and  traduced  the  state, 
I  took  by  the  throat  the  circumcised  dog, 
And  smote  him,  thus,"  — 

that  he  struck  himself  fiercely  on  the  breast 
with  an  iron  chisel,  and  fainted  under  the 
blow.  We  can  hardly  believe  that  Shake 
speare  is  beyond  the  mental  grasp  of  childhood, 
when  Scott,  at  seven,  crept  out  of  bed  on 
winter  nights  to  read  "  King  Henry  IV.,"  and 
Rossetti,  at  nine,  was  overwhelmed  by  the 
agony  of  Othello's  remorse. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  are  writers,  and 
very  brilliant  writers,  too,  whose  early  lives 
appear  to  have  been  undisturbed  by  such 
keenly  imaginative  pastimes,  and  for  whom 
there  are  no  well-loved  and  familiar  figures 
illumined  forever  in  "  that  bright,  clear,  undy 
ing  light  that  borders  the  edge  of  the  oblivion 
of  infancy."  Count  Tolstoi  confesses  himself 
to  have  been  half  hurt,  half  puzzled,  by  his 
fellow-students  at  the  University  of  Mos 
cow,  who  seemed  to  him  so  coarse  and  inele- 


THE  CHILDREN'S  POETS.  47 

gant,  and  yet  who  had  read  and  enjoyed  so 
much.  "  Pushkin  and  Zhukovsky  were  litera 
ture  to  them,"  he  says  wistfully,  "  and  not,  as 
to  me,  little  books  in  yellow  bindings  which  I 
had  studied  as  a  child."  But  how,  one  won 
ders,  could  Pushkin  have  remained  merely  a 
"  little  book  in  yellow  binding  "  to  any  boy 
who  had  had  the  happiness  of  studying  him  as 
a  child  ?  Pushkin  is  the  Russian  Byron,  and 
embodies  in  his  poems  the  same  spirit  of  rest- 
less  discontent,  of  dejected  languor,  of  pas 
sionate  revolt ;  not  revolt  against  the  Tsar, 
which  is  a  limited  and  individual  judgment, 
but  revolt  against  the  bitter  penalties  of  life, 
which  is  a  sentiment  common  to  the  youth  of 
all  nations  and  of  every  age.  Yet  there  are 
Englishmen  who  have  no  word  save  that  of 
scorn  for  Byron,  and  I  feel  uncertain  whether 
such  critics  ever  enjoyed  the  privilege  of  being 
boys  at  all.  If  to  George  Meredith's  composed 
and  complacent  mind  there  strays  any  wanton 
recollection  of  young,  impetuous  days,  how 
can  he  write  with  pen  of  gall  these  worse  than 
churlish  lines  on  Manfred  ?  — 

"  Projected  from  the  bilious  Childe, 
This  clatterjaw  his  foot  could  set 


48  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

On  Alps,  without  a  breast  beguiled 

To  glow  in  shedding  rascal  sweat. 

Somewhere  about  his  grinder  teeth 

He  mouthed  of  thoughts  that  grilled  beneath, 

And  summoned  Nature  to  her  feud 

With  bile  and  buskin  attitude." 

There  is  more  of  this  pretty  poem,  but  I  have 
quoted  as  much  as  my  own  irascibility  can 
bear.  I,  at  least,  have  been  a  child,  and  have 
spent  some  of  my  childhood's  happiest  hours 
with  Manfred  on  the  Alps  ;  and  have  with 
him  beheld 

"  the  tall  pines  dwindled  as  to  shrubs 
In  dizziness  of  distance," 

and  have  believed  with  all  a  child's  sincerity 
in  his  remorseful  gloom :  — 

"  for  I  have  ceased 
To  justify  my  deeds  unto  myself — 
The  last  infirmity  of  evil." 

Every  line  is  inexpressibly  dear  to  me  now, 
recalling,  as  it  does,  the  time  "  when  I  was  in 
my  father's  house,  and  my  path  ran  down  with 
butter  and  honey."  Once  more  I  see  the  big, 
bare,  old-fashioned  parlor,  to  dust  which  was 
my  daily  task,  my  dear  mother  having  striven 
long  and  vainly  to  teach  my  idle  little  hands 
some  useful  housewifely  accomplishment.  In 


THE   CHILDREN'S  POETS.  49 

one  corner  stood  a  console-table,  with  chilly 
Parian  ornaments  on  top,  and  underneath  a 
pile  of  heavy  books ;  Wordsworth,  Moore,  the 
poems  of  Frances  Sargent  Osgood,  —  no  lack 
of  variety  here,  —  "  The  Lady  of  the  Lake," 
and  Byron  in  an  embossed  brown  binding,  with 
closely  printed  double  columns,  well  calculated 
to  dim  the  keenest  sight  in  Christendom.  Not 
that  mysterious  and  malignant  mountain  which 
rose  frowning  from  the  sea,  and  drew  all  ships 
shattered  to  its  feet,  was  more  irresistible  in 
its  attraction  than  this  brown,  bulky  Byron. 
I  could  not  pass  it  by  !  My  dusting  never  got 
beyond  the  table  where  it  lay;  but  sitting 
crumpled  on  the  floor,  with  the  enchanted 
volume  on  my  lap,  I  speedily  forgot  every 
thing  in  the  world  save  only  the  wandering 
Childe, 

"  Who  ne  in  virtue's  ways  did  take  delight," 

or  "  The  Corsair,"  or  "  Mazeppa,"  or  "  Man 
fred,"  best  loved  of  that  dark  group.  Perhaps 
Byron  is  not  considered  wholesome  reading  for 
little  girls  in  these  careful  days  when  expur 
gated  editions  of  "  The  Vicar  of  Wakefield  " 
and  "  Paul  and  Virginia "  find  favor  in  our 
nurseries.  On  this  score  I  have  no  defense  to 


60  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

offer,  and  I  am  not  proposing  the  poet  as  a 
safe  text-book  for  early  youth ;  but  having 
never  been  told  that  there  was  such  a  thing 
as  forbidden  fruit  in  literature,  I  was  spared 
at  least  that  alert  curiosity  concerning  it 
which  is  one  of  the  most  unpleasant  results  of 
our  present  guarded  system.  Moreover,  we 
have  Goethe's  word  for  it  that  Byron  is  not 
as  immoral  as  the  newspapers,  and  certainly 
he  is  more  agreeable  reading.  I  do  sincerely 
believe  that  if  part  of  his  attraction  for  the 
young  lies  in  what  Mr.  Pater  calls  "the 
grieved  dejection,  the  endless  regret,"  which 
to  the  undisciplined  soul  sounds  like  the  true 
murmur  of  life,  a  better  part  lies  in  his  large 
grasp  of  nature,  —  not  nature  in  her  minuto 
and  lovely  detail,  but  in  her  vast  outlines, 
her  salient  features,  her  solemn  majesty  and 
strength.  Crags  and  misty  mountain  tops, 
storm-swept  skies  and  the  blue  bosom  of  the 
restless  deep,  —  these  are  the  aspects  of  nature 
that  childhood  prizes,  and  loves  to  hear  de 
scribed  in  vigorous  verse.  The  pink-tipped 
daisy,  the  yellow  primrose,  and  the  freckled 
nest-eggs 

u  Hatching  iu  the  haw  thorn- tree  " 


THE   CHILDREN'S  POETS.  51 

belong  to  a  late  stage  of  development.  Eu 
genie  de  Guerin,  who  recognized  as  clearly  as 
Sainte-Beuve  the  "  fine  penetration  "  peculiar 
to  children,  and  who  regarded  them  ever  with 
half -wistful,  half -wondering  delight,  has  written 
some  very  charming  suggestions  about  the  kind 
of  poetry,  "  pure,  fresh,  joyous,  and  delicate," 
which  she  considered  proper  food  for  these 
highly  idealized  little  people,  —  "  angels  upon 
earth."  The  only  discouraging  part  of  her 
pretty  pleading  is  her  frank  admission  that  — 
in  French  literature,  at  least  —  there  is  no  such 
poetry  as  she  describes,  which  shows  how  hard 
it  is  to  conciliate  an  exclusive  theory  of  excel 
lence.  She  endeavored  sincerely,  in  her  "  In- 
fantines,"  to  remedy  this  defect,  to  "  speak  to 
childhood  in  its  own  language  ;  "  and  her  verses 
on  "  Joujou,  the  Angel  of  the  Playthings,"  are 
quaintly  conceived  and  full  of  gentle  fancies. 
No  child  is  strongly  moved,  or  taught  the  en 
during  delight  of  song,  by  such  lines  as  these, 
but  most  children  will  take  a  genuine  pleasure 
in  the  baby  angel  who  played  with  little  Abel 
under  the  myrtle-trees,  who  made  the  first  dol] 
and  blew  the  first  bubble,  and  who  finds  a 
friend  in  every  tiny  boy  and  girl  born  into  this 


52  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

big  gray  world.  Strange  to  say,  he  has  his 
English  counterpart  in  Mr.  Kobert  Louis 
Stevenson's  "  Unseen  Playmate,"  that  shadowy 
companion  whose  home  is  the  cave  dug  by 
childish  hands,  and  who  is  ready  to  share  all 
games  in  the  most  engaging  spirit  of  accom 
modation. 

"'  'Tis  he,  when  you  play  with  your  soldiers  of  tin, 
That  sides  with  the  Frenchmen,  and  never  can  win ;  " 

a  touch  of  combative  veracity  which  brings  us 
down  at  once  from  Mademoiselle  de  Guerin's 
fancy  flights  to  the  real  playground,  where 
real  children,  very  faintly  resembling  "  angels 
upon  earth,"  are  busy  with  mimic  warfare. 
Mr.  Stevenson  is  one  of  the  few  poets  whose 
verses,  written  especially  for  the  nursery,  have 
found  their  way  straight  into  little  hearts. 
His  charming  style,  his  quick,  keen  sympathy, 
and  the  ease  with  which  he  enters  into  that 
brilliant  world  of  imagination  wherein  chil 
dren  habitually  dwell,  make  him  their  natural 
friend  and  minstrel.  If  some  of  the  rhymes 
in  "A  Child's  Garden  of  Verses"  seem  a  trifle 
bald  and  babyish,  even  these  are  guiltless 
of  condescension  ;  while  others,  like  "  Travel," 
"  Shadow  March,"  and  "  The  Land  of  Story- 


THE   CHILDREN'S  POETS.  53 

Books,"  are  instinct  with  poetic  life.  I  can 
only  regret  that  a  picture  so  faultless  in  detail 
as  "Shadow  March,"  where  we  see  the  crawl 
ing  darkness  peer  through  the  window  pane, 
and  hear  the  beating  of  the  little  boy's  heart 
as  he  creeps  fearfully  up  the  stair,  should  be 
marred  at  its  close  by  a  single  line  of  false 
imagery :  — 

"  All  the  wicked  shadows  coming-,  tramp,  tramp,  tramp, 
With  the  black  night  overhead." 

So  fine  an  artist  as  Mr.  Stevenson  must  know 
that  shadows  do  not  tramp,  and  that  the  recur 
rence  of  a  short,  vigorous  word  which  tells  so 
admirably  in  Scott's  "  William  and  Helen,"  and 
wherever  the  effect  of  sound  combined  with 
motion  is  to  be  conveyed,  is  sadly  out  of  place 
in  describing  the  ghostly  things  that  glide  with 
horrible  noiselessness  at  the  feet  of  the  fright 
ened  lad.  Children,  moreover,  are  keenly 
alive  to  the  value  and  the  suggestiveness  of 
terms.  A  little  eight-year-old  girl  of  my  ac 
quaintance,  who  was  reciting  "  Lord  Ullin's 
Daughter,"  stopped  short  at  these  lines,  — 

"  Adown  the  glen  rode  armed  men, 

Their  trampling  sounded  nearer,"  — 

and  called  out  excitedly,  "  Don't  you  hear  the 


54  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

"horses  ?  "  She,  at  least,  heard  them  as  if  with 
the  swift  apprehension  of  fear,  heard  them  loud 
above  the  sounds  of  winds  and  waters,  and 
rendered  her  unconscious  tribute  of  praise  to 
the  sympathetic  selection  of  words. 

There  is,  as  we  know,  a  great  deal  of  poetry 
written  every  year  for  childish  readers.  Some 
of  it  makes  its  appearance  in  Christmas  books, 
which  are  so  beautifully  bound  and  illustrated 
that  the  little  foolish,  feeble  verses  are  forgiven, 
and  in  fact  forgotten,  ignored  altogether  amid 
more  important  accessories.  Better  poems  than 
these  are  published  in  children's  periodicals, 
where  they  form  a  notable  feature,  and  are, 
I  dare  say,  read  by  the  young  people  whose 
tastes  are  catered  to  in  this  fashion.  Those  of 
us  who  are  familiar  with  these  periodicals  — 
either  weeklies  or  monthlies  —  are  well  aware 
that  the  verses  they  offer  may  be  easily  divided 
into  three  classes.  First,  mere  rhymes  and 
jingles,  intended  for  very  little  readers,  and 
with  which  it  would  be  simple  churlishness 
to  quarrel.  They  do  not  aspire  to  be  poetry, 
they  are  sometimes  very  amusing,  and  they 
have  an  easy  swing  that  is  pleasant  alike  to 
young  ears  and  old.  It  must  be  a  hard  heart 


THE  CHILDREN'S  POETS.  55 

that  does  not  sympathize  with  the  unlucky  and 
ill-mated  gnome  who  was 

"  full  of  fun  and  frolic, 
But  his  wife  was  melancholic  ; " 

or  with  the  small  damsel  in  pigtail  and  pina 
fore  who  comforts  herself  at  the  piano  with 
this  engaging  but  dubious  maxim  :  — 

"  Practicing  is  good  for  a  good  little  girl ; 
It  makes  her  nose  straight,  and  it  makes  her  hair  curl." 

The  second  kind  of  verse  appears  to  be  written 
solely  for  the  sake  of  the  accompanying  illus 
tration,  and  is  often  the  work  of  the  illustrator, 
who  is  more  at  home  with  his  pencil  than  his 
pen.  Occasionally  it  is  comic,  occasionally 
sentimental  or  descriptive  ;  for  the  most  part 
it  is  something  in  this  style  :  — 

THE  ELF  AND  THE  BUMBLE  BEE. 

"  Oh,  bumble  bee ! 

Bumble  bee  1 
Don't  fly  so  near ! 
Or  you  will  tumble  me 
Over,  I  fear." 

«  Oh,  funny  elf ! 

Funny  elf ! 
Don't  be  alarmed ! 
I  am  looking  for  honey,  elf ; 
You  sha'n't  be  harmed." 


66  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS, 

"  Then  tarry, 

Oh,  tarry,  bee  I 
Fill  up  your  sack ; 
And  carry,  oh,  carry  me 
Home  on  your  back."  l 

Now  what  child  will  read  more  than  once  these 
empty  little  verses  (very  prettily  illustrated) 
when  it  is  in  his  power  to  turn  back  to  other 
sprites  that  sing  in  different  strains,  —  to  the 
fairy  who  wanders 

"  Over  hill,  over  dale, 
Thorough  bush,  thorough  briar,  " 

seeking  pearl  eardrops  for  the  cowslips'  ears ; 
or  to  that  softer  shape,  the  music  of  whose 
song,  once  heard,  haunts  us  forever :  — 

"  Full  fathom  five  thy  father  lies ; 

Of  his  bones  are  coral  made ; 
Those  are  pearls  that  were  his  eyes : 

Nothing  of  him  that  doth  fade 
But  doth  suffer  a  sea-change 
Into  something  rich  and  strange." 

These  are  the  sweet,  mysterious  echoes  of  true 
fairyland,  where  Shakespeare  and  little  chil 
dren  wander  at  their  will. 

Poems  of  the  third  class  are  intended  for 
growing  girls    and    boys,   and   aspire   to   be 
1  Oliver  Herf ord  in  St.  Nicholas. 


THE  CHILDREN'S  POETS.  57 

considered  literature.  They  are  well  written, 
as  a  rule,  with  a  smooth  fluency  that  seems  to 
be  the  distinguishing  gift  of  our  minor  verse- 
makers,  who,  even  when  they  have  least  to  say, 
say  it  with  unbroken  sweetness  and  grace.  This 
pretty,  easy  insignificance  is  much  better 
adapted  to  adult  readers,  who  demand  little 
of  poets  beyond  brevity,  than  to  children, 
who  love  large  issues,  real  passions,  fine  emo 
tions,  and  an  heroic  attitude  in  life.  Pleas 
ant  thoughts  couched  in  pleasant  language, 
trivial  details,  and  photographic  bits  of  de 
scription  make  no  lasting  appeal  to  the  ex 
pansive  imagination  of  a  child.  Analysis  is 
wasted  upon  him  altogether,  because  he  sees 
things  swiftly,  and  sees  them  as  a  whole.  He 
may  disregard  fine  shading  and  minute  merits, 
but  there  are  no  boundaries  to  his  wandering 
vision.  "  Small  sciences  are  the  labors  of  our 
manhood,  but  the  round  universe  is  the  play 
thing  of  the  boy." 

The  painful  lack  of  distinction  in  most  of 
the  poetry  prepared  especially  for  him  chills 
his  fine  ardor  and  dulls  his  imagination. 
Subtle  verses  about  moods  and  tempers,  cal 
culated  to  make  healthy  little  readers  emu- 


58  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

late  Miss  Martineau's  peevish  self-sympathy ; 
melancholy  verses  about  young  children  who 
suffer  poverty  and  disaster ;  weird  and  unin 
telligible  verses,  with  all  Poe's  indistinctness 
and  none  of  his  music;  commonplace  verses 
about  bootblacks  and  newsboys ;  descriptive 
verses  about  snowstorms  and  April  showers ; 
pious  verses  about  infant  prigs  ;  —  verses  of 
every  kind,  all  on  the  same  level  of  agreeable 
mediocrity,  and  all  warranted  to  be  so  harm 
less  that  a  baby  could  hear  them  without 
blushing.  Why,  the  child  who  reads  "  Young 
Lochinvar  "  is  richer  in  that  one  good  and  gal 
lant  poem  than  the  child  who  has  all  these 
modern  substitutes  heaped  yearly  at  his  fool 
ish  feet. 

For  the  question  at  issue  is  not  what  kind 
of  poetry  is  wholesome  for  children,  but  what 
kind  of  poetry  do  children  love.  In  nineteen 
cases  out  of  twenty,  that  which  they  love  is 
good  for  them,  and  they  can  guide  themselves 
a  great  deal  better  than  we  can  hope  to  guide 
them.  I  once  asked  a  friend  who  had  spent 
many  years  in  teaching  little  girls  and  boys 
whether  her  small  pupils,  when  left  to  their 
own  discretion,  ever  chose  any  of  the  pretty, 


THE   CHILDREN'S  POETS.  59 

trivial  verses  out  of  new  books  and  magazines 
for  study  and  recitation.  She  answered, 
Never.  They  turned  instinctively  to  the  same 
old  favorites  she  had  been  listening  to  so  long ; 
to  the  same  familiar  poems  that  their  fathers 
and  mothers  had  probably  studied  and  recited 
before  them.  "  Hohenlinden,"  "  Glenara," 
"Lord  UHin's  Daughter,"  "Young  Lochin- 
var,"  "  Rosabelle,"  "  To  Lucasta,  on  going  to 
the  Wars,"  the  luUaby  from  "  The  Princess," 
"  Lady  Clara  Vere  de  Vere,"  "  Annabel  Lee," 
Longfellow's  translation  of  "  The  Castle  by  the 
Sea,"  and  "  The  Skeleton  in  Armor,"  —  these 
are  the  themes  of  which  children  never  weary ; 
these  are  the  songs  that  are  sung  forever  in 
their  secret  Paradise  of  Delights.  The  little 
volumes  containing  such  tried  and  proven 
friends  grow  shabby  with  much  handling ;  and 
I  have  seen  them  marked  all  over  with  myste 
rious  crosses  and  dots  and  stars,  each  of  which 
denoted  the  exact  degree  of  affection  which  the 
child  bore  to  the  poem  thus  honored  and  ap 
proved.  I  can  fancy  Mr.  Lang's  "  Blue  Poetry 
Book"  fairly  covered  with  such  badges  of 
distinction  ;  for  never  before  has  any  selection 
of  poems  appealed  so  clearly  and  insistently  to 


60  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

childish  tastes  and  hearts.  When  I  turn  over 
its  pages,  I  feel  as  if  the  children  of  England 
must  have  brought  their  favorite  songs  to  Mr, 
Lang,  and  prayed,  each  one,  that  his  own 
darling  might  be  admitted,  —  as  if  they  must 
have  forced  his  choice  into  their  chosen  chan 
nels.  Its  only  rival  in  the  field,  Palgrave's 
"  Children's  Treasury  of  English  Song,"  is 
edited  with  such  nice  discrimination,  such 
critical  reserve,  that  it  is  well-nigh  flawless,  — 
a  triumph  of  delicacy  and  good  taste.  But 
much  that  childhood  loves  is  necessarily  ex 
cluded  from  a  volume  so  small  and  so  care 
fully  considered.  The  older  poets,  it  is  true, 
are  generously  treated,  —  Herrick,  especially, 
makes  a  braver  show  than  he  does  in  Mr. 
Lang's  collection ;  and  there  are  plenty  of 
beautiful  ballads,  some  of  which,  like  "  The 
Lass  of  Lochroyan,"  we  miss  *orely  from  the 
pages  of  the  "  Blue  Poetry  Book."  On  tto 
other  hand,  where,  in  Mr.  Palgrave's  "  Treas 
ury,"  are  those  lovely  snatches  of  song  familiar 
to  our  earliest  years,  and  which  we  welcome 
individually  with  a  thrill  of  pleasure,  as  Mr. 
Lang  shows  them  to  us  once  more  ?  —  "  Ros< 
Aylmer,"  "County  Guy,"  "Proud  Maisie," 


THE   CHILDREN'S  POETS.  61 

*  How  Sleep  the  Brave,"  "  Nora's  Vow,"  — 
the  delight  of  my  own  childhood,  —  the  pa 
thetic  "  Farewell,"  — 

"  It  was  a'  for  our  rightf u'  King, 

We  left  fair  Scotland's  strand ; 
It  was  a'  for  our  rightfu'  King, 
We  e'er  saw  Irish  land,"  — 

and  Hood's  silvery  little  verses  beginning,  — 

"  A  lake  and  a  fairy  boat 

To  sail  in  the  moonlight  clear,  — 
And  merrily  we  would  float 

From  the  dragons  that  watch  us  here  I  " 

All  these  and  many  more  are  gathered  safely 
into  this  charming  volume.  Nothing  we  long 
to  see  appears  to  be  left  out,  except,  indeed, 
Waller's  "Go,  Lovely  Rose,"  and  Herrick's 
"  Night  Piece,"  both  of  them  very  serious  omis 
sions.  It  seems  strange  to  find  seven  of  Edgar 
Poe's  poems  in  a  collection  which  excludes  the 
"  Night  Piece,"  so  true  a  favorite  with  all  girl 
children,  and  a  favorite  that,  once  rightfully 
established,  can  never  be  thrust  from  our  affec 
tions.  As  for  Praed's  "  Red  Fisherman,"  Mr. 
Lang  has  somewhere  recorded  his  liking  for 
this  "  sombre  "  tale,  which,  I  think,  embodies 
everything  that  a  child  ought  not  to  love.  It 


62  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

is  the  only  poem  in  the  book  that  I  wish  else 
where  ;  but  perhaps  this  is  a  perverse  prejudice 
on  my  part.  There  may  be  little  readers  to 
whom  its  savage  cynicism  and  gloom  carry  a 
pleasing  terror,  like  that  which  oppressed  my 
infant  soul  as  I  lingered  with  Goodman  Brown 
in  the  awful  witch-haunted  forest  where  Haw 
thorne  has  shown  us  the  triumph  of  evil  things. 
"  It  is  his  excursions  into  the  unknown  world 
which  the  child  enjoys,"  says  Mr.  Lang ;  and 
how  shall  we  set  a  limit  to  his  wanderings !  He 

O 

journeys  far  with  careless,  secure  footsteps ; 
and  for  him  the  stars  sing  in  their  spheres, 
and  fairies  dance  in  the  moonlight,  and  the 
hoarse  clashing  of  arms  rings  bravely  from 
hard-won  fields,  and  lovers  fly  together  under 
the  stormy  skies.  He  rides  with  Lochinvar, 
and  sails  with  Sir  Patrick  Spens  into  the  north 
ern  seas,  and  chases  the  red  deer  with  Allen-a- 
Dale,  and  stands  by  Marmion's  side  in  the 
thick  of  the  ghastly  fray.  He  has  given  his 
heart  to  Helen  of  Troy,  and  to  the  Maid  of 
Saragossa,  and  to  the  pale  child  who  met  her 
death  on  the  cruel  Gordon  spears,  and  to  the 
lady  with  yellow  hair  who  knelt  moaning  by 
Barthrani's  bier.  His  friends  are  bold  Robin 


THE   CHILDREN'S  POETS.  63 

Hood,  and  Lancelot  du  Lac,  and  the  white- 
plumed  Henry  of  Navarre,  and  the  princely 
scapegrace  who  robbed  the  robbers  to  make 
"  laughter  for  a  month,  and  a  good  jest  for 
ever."  A  lordly  company  these,  and  seldoir 
to  be  found  in  the  gray  walks  of  middle  age. 
Robin  Hood  dwells  not  on  the  Stock  Exchange, 
and  Prince  Hal  dare  not  show  his  laughing 
face  before  societies  for  leveling  thrones  and 
reorganizing  the  universe.  We  adults  pass 
our  days,  alas,  in  the  Town  of  Stupidity, — 
abhorred  of  Bunyan's  soul,  —  and  our  com 
panions  are  Mr.  Worldly  Wiseman,  and  Mr. 
Despondency,  and  Mr.  Want-wit,  still  scrub 
bing  his  Ethiopian,  and  Mr.  Feeble-mind,  and 
the  "  deplorable  young  woman  named  Dull." 
But  it  is  better  to  be  young,  and  to  see  the 
golden  light  of  romance  in  the  skies,  and  to 
kiss  the  white  feet  of  Helen,  as  she  stands  like 
a  star  on  the  battlements.  It  is  better  to  fol 
low  Hector  to  the  fight,  and  Guinevere  to  the 
sad  cloisters  of  Almesbury,  and  the  Ancient 
Mariner  to  that  silent  sea  where  the  death- 
fires  gleam  by  night.  Even  to  us  who  have 
made  these  magic  voyages  in  our  childhood 
there  comes  straying,  at  times,  a  pale  reflection 


64  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS 

of  that  early  radiance,  a  faint,  sweet  echo 
of  that  early  song.  Then  the  streets  of  the 
Town  of  Stupidity  grow  soft  to  tread,  and  Fal- 
stafPs  great  laugh  frightens  Mr.  Despondency 
into  a  shadow.  Then  Madeline  smiles  on  us 
under  the  wintry  moonlight,  and  Porphyro 
steals  by  with  strange  sweets  heaped  in  bas 
kets  of  wreathed  silver.  Then  we  know  that 
with  the  poets  there  is  perpetual  youth,  and 
that  for  us,  as  for  the  child  dreaming  in  the 
firelight,  the  shining  casements  open  upon 
fairyland. 


THE  PRAISES  OF  WAR. 

WHEN  the  world  was  younger  and  perhaps 
merrier,  when  people  lived  more  and  thought 
less,  and  when  the  curious  subtleties  of  an  ad 
vanced  civilization  had  not  yet  turned  men's 
heads  with  conceit  of  their  own  enlightening 
progress  from  simple  to  serious  things,  poets 
had  two  recognized  sources  of  inspiration, 
which  were  sufficient  for  themselves  and  for 
their  unexacting  audiences.  They  sang  of 
love  and  they  sang  of  war,  of  fair  women  and 
of  brave  men,  of  keen  youthful  passions  and 
of  the  dear  delights  of  battle.  Sweet  Rosa- 
monde  lingers  "  in  Woodstocke  bower,"  and 
Sir  Cauline  wrestles  with  the  Eldridge  knighte ; 
Annie  of  Lochroyan  sails  over  the  roughening 
seas,  and  Lord  Percy  rides  gayly  to  the  Chev 
iot  hills  with  fifteen  hundred  bowmen  at  his 
back.  It  did  not  occur  to  the  thick-headed 
generation  who  first  listened  to  the  ballad  of 
"Chevy  Chace"  to  hint  that  the  game  was 


66  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

hardly  worth  the  candle,  or  that  poaching  on 
a  large  scale  was  as  reprehensible  ethically  as 
poaching  on  a  little  one.  This  sort  of  insight 
was  left  for  the  nineteenth-century  philosopher, 
and  the  nineteenth  -  century  moralist.  In 
earlier,  easier  days,  the  last  thing  that  a  poet 
troubled  himself  about  was  a  defensible  motive 
for  the  battle  in  which  his  soul  exulted.  His 
business  was  to  describe  the  fighting,  not  to 
justify  the  fight,  which  would  have  been  a  task 
of  pure  supererogation  in  that  truculent  age. 
Fancy  trying  to  justify  Kinmont  Willie  or 
Johnie  of  Braedislee,  instead  of  counting  the 
hard  knocks  they  give  and  the  stout  men  they 
lay  low ! 

"  Johnie  'a  set  his  back  against  an  aik, 

His  foot  against  a  stane  ; 
And  he  has  slain  the  Seven  Foresters,  — 
He  has  slain  them  a'  but  ane." 

The  last  echo  of  this  purely  irresponsible 
spirit  may  be  found  in  the  "War  Song  of 
Dinas  Vawr,"  where  Peacock,  always  three 
hundred  years  behind  his  time,  sings  of 
slaughter  with  a  bellicose  cheerfulness  which 

o 

only  his  admirable  versification  can  excuse:  — 

"  The  mountain  sheep  are  sweeter, 
But  the  valley  sheep  are  fatter ; 


THE  PRAISES   OF  WAR.  67 

We  therefore  deemed  it  meeter 

To  carry  off  the  latter. 

We  made  an  expedition ; 

We  met  an  host  and  quelled  it ; 

We  forced  a  strong  position, 

And  killed  the  men  who  held  it." 

There  is  not  even  a  lack  of  food  at  home  — 
the  old  traditional  dinner  of  spurs  —  to  war 
rant  this  foray.  There  is  no  hint  of  necessity 
for  the  harriers,  or  consideration  for  the  har 
ried, 

"  We  brought  away  from  battle, 
And  much  their  land  bemoaned  them, 
Two  thousand  head  of  cattle, 
And  the  head  of  him  who  owned  them : 
Ednyfed,  King  of  Dyfed, 
His  head  was  borne  before  us ; 
His  wine  and  beasts  supplied  our  feasts, 
And  his  overthrow  our  chorus." 

It  is  impossible  to  censure  a  deed  so  irresistibly 
narrated  ;  but  if  the  lines  were  a  hair-breadth 
less  mellifluous,  I  think  we  should  call  this  a 
very  barbarous  method  of  campaigning. 

When  the  old  warlike  spirit  was  dying  out 
of  English  verse,  when  poets  had  begun  to 
meditate  and  moralize,  to  interpret  nature  and 
to  counsel  man,  the  good  gods  gave  to  Eng 
land,  as  a  link  with  the  days  that  were  dead, 


68  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

Sir  Walter  Scott,  who  sang,  as  no  Briton  be 
fore  or  since  has  ever  sung,  of  battlefields  and 
the  hoarse  clashing  of  arms,  of  brave  deeds  and 
midnight  perils,  of  the  outlaw  riding  by  Brig- 
nail  banks,  and  the  trooper  shaking  his  silken 
bridle  reins  upon  the  river  shore  :  — • 

"  Adieu  for  evermore, 

My  love ! 
And  adieu  for  evermore." 

These  are  not  precisely  the  themes  which 
enjoy  unshaken  popularity  to-day,  —  "  the  poet 
of  battles  fares  ill  in  modern  England,"  says 
Sir  Francis  Doyle, — and  as  a  consequence 
there  are  many  people  who  speak  slightingly  of 
Scott's  poetry,  and  who  appear  to  claim  for 
themselves  some  inscrutable  superiority  by  so 
doing.  They  give  you  to  understand,  without 
putting  it  too  coarsely  into  words,  that  they 
are  beyond  that  sort  of  thing,  but  that  they 
liked  it  very  well  as  children,  and  are  pleased 
if  you  enjoy  it  still.  There  is  even  a  class  of 
unfortunates  who,  through  no  apparent  fault 
of  their  own,  have  ceased  to  take  delight 
in  Scott's  novels,  and  who  manifest  a  curious 
indignation  because  the  characters  in  them  go 
ahead  and  do  things,  instead  of  thinking  and 


THE  PRAISES   OF  WAR.  69 

talking  about  them,  which  is  the  present 
approved  fashion  of  evolving  fiction.  Why, 
what  time  have  the  good  people  in  "  Quentin 
Durward  "  for  speculation  and  chatter  ?  The 
rush  of  events  carries  them  irresistibly  into 
action.  They  plot,  and  fight,  and  run  away, 
and  scour  the  country,  and  meet  with  so  many 
adventures,  and  perform  so  many  brave  and 
cruel  deeds,  that  they  have  no  chance  for  in 
trospection  and  the  joys  of  analysis.  Natu 
rally,  those  writers  who  pride  themselves  upon 
making  a  story  out  of  nothing,  and  who  are 
more  concerned  with  excluding  material  than 
with  telling  their  tales,  have  scant  liking  for 
Sir  Walter,  who  thought  little  and  prated  not 
at  all  about  the  "  art  of  fiction,"  but  used  the 
subjects  which  came  to  hand  with  the  instinc 
tive  and  unhesitating  skill  of  a  great  artist. 
The  battles  in  "Quentin  Durward"  and  "Old 
Mortality  "  are,  I  think,  as  fine  in  their  way  as 
the  battle  of  Flodden  ;  and  Flodden,  says  Mr. 
Lang,  is  the  finest  fight  on  record,  —  "  better 
even  than  the  stand  of  Aias  by  the  ships  in 
the  Iliad,  better  than  the  slaying  of  the  Wooers 
in  the  Odyssey." 

The  ability  to  carry  us  whither  he  would,  to 


TO  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

flhow  us  whatever  he  pleased,  and  to  stir  our 
hearts'  blood  with  the  story  of 

"  old,  unhappy,  far-off  things, 
And  battles  long  ago," 

was  the  especial  gift  of  Scott,  —  of  the  man 
whose  sympathies  were  as  deep  as  life  itself, 
whose  outlook  was  as  wide  as  the  broad 
bosom  of  the  earth  he  trod  on.  He  believed 
in  action,  and  he  delighted  in  describing  it. 
"  The  thinker's  voluntary  death  in  life  "  was 
not,  for  him,  the  power  that  moves  the  world, 
but  rather  deeds,  —  deeds  that  make  history 
and  that  sing  themselves  forever.  He  honestly 
felt  himself  to  be  a  much  smaller  man  than 
Wellington.  He  stood  abashed  in  the  pres 
ence  of  the  soldier  who  had  led  large  issues 
and  controlled  the  fate  of  nations.  He  would 
have  been  sincerely  amused  to  learn  from 
"  Robert  Elsmere  "  —  what  a  delicious  thing 
it  is  to  contemplate  Sir  Walter  reading 
"  Robert  Elsmere  "  !  —  that  "  the  decisive 
events  of  the  world  take  place  in  the  intellect." 
The  decisive  events  of  the  world,  Scott  held 
to  take  place  in  the  field  of  action ;  on  the 
plains  of  Marathon  and  Waterloo  rather  than 
in  the  brain  tissues  of  William  Godwin.  He 


THE  PRAISES  OF  WAR.  71 

knew  what  befell  Athens  when  she  could  put 
forward  no  surer  defense  against  Philip  of 
Macedon  than  the  most  brilliant  orations  ever 
written  in  praise  of  freedom.  It  was  better, 
he  probably  thought,  to  argue  as  the  English 
did,  "  in  platoons."  The  schoolboy  who  fought 
with  the  heroic  "  Green-Breeks  "  in  the  streets 
of  Edinburgh ;  the  student  who  led  the  Tory 
youths  in  their  gallant  struggle  with  the  rioi> 
ous  Irishmen,  and  drove  them  with  stout  cud* 
geling  out  of  the  theatre  they  had  disgraced  ; 
the  man  who,  broken  in  health  and  spirit,  was 
yet  blithe  and  ready  to  back  his  quarrel  with 
Gourgaud  by  giving  that  gentleman  any  satis 
faction  he  desired,  was  consistent  throughout 
with  the  simple  principles  of  a  bygone  genera 
tion.  "  It  is  clear  to  me,"  he  writes  in  his  jour 
nal,  "  that  what  is  least  forgiven  in  a  man  of 
any  mark  or  likelihood  is  want  of  that  article 
blackguardly  called  pluck.  All  the  fine  quali 
ties  of  genius  cannot  make  amends  for  it. 
We  are  told  the  genius  of  poets  especially 
is  irreconcilable  with  this  species  of  gren 
adier  accomplishment.  If  so,  quel  cJiien  de 

*   *    t  it 
genie  I 

Quel  chien  de  genie  indeed,  and  far  beyond 


72  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

the  compass  of  Scott,  who,  amid  the  growing 
sordidness  and  seriousness  of  an  industrial 
and  discontented  age,  struck  a  single  resonant 
note  that  rings  in  our  hearts  to-day  like  the 
echo  of  good  and  joyous  things  :  — 

"  Sound,  sound  the  clarion,  fill  the  fife ! 

To  all  the  sensual  world  proclaim, 
One  crowded  hour  of  glorious  life 
Is  worth  an  age  without  a  name." 

The  same  sentiments  are  put,  it  may  be  remem 
bered,  into  admirable  prose  when  Graham  of 
Claverhouse  expounds  to  Henry  Morton  his 
views  on  living  and  dying.  At  present,  Phi 
losophy  and  Philanthropy  between  them  are 
hustling  poor  Glory  into  a  small  corner  of  the 
field.  Even  to  the  soldier,  we  are  told,  it 
should  be  a  secondary  consideration,  or  per 
haps  no  consideration  at  all,  his  sense  of 
duty  being  a  sufficient  stay.  But  Scott,  like 
Homer,  held  somewhat  different  views,  and 
absolutely  declined  to  let  "  that  jade  Duty  " 
have  everything  her  own  way.  It  is  the  plain 
duty  of  Blount  and  Eustace  to  stay  by  Clare's 
side  and  guard  her  as  they  were  bidden,  instead 
of  which  they  rush  off,  with  Sir  Walter's  tacit 
approbation,  to  the  fray. 


THE  PRAISES   OF  WAR.  73 

"  No  longer  Blount  the  view  could  bear : 
*  By  heaven  and  all  its  saints !    I  swear 

I  will  not  see  it  lost ! 
Fitz-Eustace,  you  with  Lady  Clare 
May  bid  your  beads  and  patter  prayer,  — 

I  gallop  to  the  host.'  " 

It  was  this  cheerful  acknowledgment  of  hu 
man  nature  as  a  large  factor  in  life  which 
gave  to  Scott  his  genial  sympathy  with  brave, 
imperfect  men ;  which  enabled  him  to  draw 
with  true  and  kindly  art  such  soldiers  as  Le 
Balafre,  and  Dugald  Dalgetty,  and  William 
of  Deloraine.  JLe  Balafre,  indeed,  with  his 
thick-headed  loyalty,  his  conceit  of  his  own 
wisdom,  his  unswerving,  almost  unconscious 
courage,  his  readiness  to  risk  his  neck  for  a 
bride,  and  his  reluctance  to  marry  her,  is 
every  whit  as  veracious  as  if  he  were  the  over- 
analyzed  child  of  realism,  instead  of  one  of 
the  many  minor  characters  thrust  with  wanton 
prodigality  into  the  pages  of  a  romantic  novel. 
Alone  among  modern  poets,  Scott  sings 
Homerically  of  strife.  Others  have  caught 
the  note,  but  none  have  upheld  it  with  such  sus 
tained  force,  such  clear  and  joyous  resonance. 
Macaulay  has  fire  and  spirit,  but  he  is  always 
too  rhetorical,  too  declamatory,  for  real  emotion. 


74  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

He  stirs  brave  hearts,  it  is  true,  and  the  finest 
tribute  to  his  eloquence  was  paid  by  Mrs. 
Browning,  who  said  she  could  not  read  the 
"  Lays  "  lying  down  ;  they  drew  her  irresistibly 
to  her  feet.  But  when  Macaulay  sings  of  Lake 
Regillus,  I  do  not  see  the  battle  swim  before 
my  eyes.  I  see  —  whether  I  want  to  or  not  — 
a  platform,  and  the  poet's  own  beloved  school 
boy  declaiming  with  appropriate  gestures  those 
glowing  and  vigorous  lines.  When  Scott  sings 
of  Flodden,  I  stand  wraith-like  in  the  thickest 
of  the  fray.  I  know  how  the  Scottish  ranks 
waver  and  reel  before  the  charge  of  Stanley's 
men,  how  Tunstall's  stainless  banner  sweeps 
the  field,  and  how,  in  the  gathering  gloom, 

"  The  stubborn  spearmen  still  made  good 
Their  dark  impenetrable  wood, 
Each  stepping  where  his  comrade  stood, 
The  instant  that  he  fell." 

There  is  none  of  this  noble  simplicity  in  the 
somewhat  dramatic  ardor  of  Horatius,  or  in  the 
pharisaical  flavor,  inevitable  perhaps,  but  not 
the  less  depressing,  of  Naseby  and  Ivry,  which 
read  a  little  like  old  Kaiser  William's  war 
dispatches  turned  into  verse.  Better  a  thousand 
times  are  the  splendid  swing,  the  captivating 


THE  PRAISES   OF  WAR.  75 

enthusiasm  of  Drayton's  "Agincourt,"  which 
hardly  a  muck-worm  could  hear  unstirred. 
Heading  it,  we  are  as  keen  for  battle  as  were 
King  Harry's  soldiers  straining  at  the  leash. 
The  ardor  for  strife,  the  staying  power  of 
quiet  courage,  all  are  here  ;  and  here,  too,  a 
felicity  of  language  that  makes  each  noble 
name  a  trumpet  blast  of  defiance,  a  fresh 
incentive  to  heroic  deeds. 

"  With  Spanish  yew  so  strong, 
Arrows  a  cloth-yard  long, 
That  like  to  serpents  stung, 

Piercing  the  weather ; 
None  from  his  fellow  starts, 
But  playing  manly  parts, 
And  like  true  English  hearts, 

Stuck  close  together. 


"  Warwick  in  blood  did  wade, 
Oxford  the  foe  invade, 
And  cruel  slaughter  made, 

Still  as  they  ran  up ; 
Suffolk  his  axe  did  ply, 
Beaumont  and  Willoughby 
Bare  them  right  doughtily, 

Ferrers  and  Fanhope. 

"  Upon  Saint  Crispin's  day 
Fought  was  this  noble  fray, 
Which  fame  did  not  delay 
To  England  to  carry ; 


76  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

Oh,  when  shall  Englishmen 
With  such  acts  fill  a  pen, 
Or  England  breed  again 
Such  a  King  Harry  ?  " 

Political  economists  and  chilly  historians  and 
all  long-headed  calculating  creatures  gener. 
ally  may  perhaps  hint  that  invading  France 
was  no  part  of  England's  business,  and  rep 
resented  fruitless  labor  and  bloodshed.  But 
this,  happily,  is  not  the  poet's  point  of  view. 
He  dreams  with  Hotspur 

"  Of  basilisks,  of  cannon,  culverm, 
Of  prisoners'  ransom  and  of  soldiers  slain, 
And  all  the  'currents  of  a  heady  fight." 

He  hears  King  Harry's  voice  ring  clearly  above 
the  cries  and  clamors  of  battle  :  — 

"  Once  more  unto  the  breach,  dear  friends,  once  more  ; 
Or  close  the  wall  up  with  our  English  dead  ;  " 

and  to  him  the  fierce  scaling  of  Harfleur  and 
the  field  of  Agincourt  seem  not  only  glorious 
but  righteous  things.  "That  pure  and  generous 
desire  to  thrash  the  person  opposed  to  you 
because  he  is  opposed  to  you,  because  he  is  not 
'your  side,'"  which  Mr.  Saintsbury  declares 
to  be  the  real  incentive  of  all  good  war  songs, 
hardly  permits  a  too  cautious  analysis  of  mo- 


THE  PRAISES   OF  WAR.  7? 

tives.  Fighting  is  not  a  strictly  philanthropic 
pastime,  and  its  merits  are  not  precisely  the 
merits  of  church  guilds  and  college  settlements. 
Warlike  saints  are  rare  in  the  calendar,  not 
withstanding  the  splendid  example  of  Michael, 
"  of  celestial  armies,  prince,"  and  there  is  at 
present  a  shameless  conspiracy  on  foot  to 
defraud  even  St.  George  of  his  hard-won  glory, 
and  to  melt  him  over  in  some  modern  crucible 
into  a  peaceful  Alexandrian  bishop.  An  Arian 
bishop,  too,  by  way  of  deepening  the  scandal ! 
"We  shall  hear  next  that  Saint  Denis  was  a 
Calvinistic  minister,  and  Saint  lago,  whom 
devout  Spanish  eyes  have  seen  mounted  in 
the  hottest  of  the  fray,  was  a  friendly  well- 
wisher  of  the  Moors. 

But  why  sigh  over  fighting  saints,  in  a  day 
when  even  fighting  sinners  have  scant  measure 
of  praise  ?  "  Moral  courage  is  everything. 
Physical  heroism  is  a  small  matter,  often  triv 
ial  enough,"  wrote  that  clever,  emotional,  sen 
sitive  German  woman,  Eahel  Varnhagen,  at 
the  very  time  when  a  little  "  physical  heroism  " 
might  have  freed  her  conquered  fatherland. 
And  this  profession  of  faith  has  gone  on  in 
creasing  in  popularity,  until  we  have  even  a 


78  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

lad  like  the  young  Laurence  Oliphant,  with 
hot  blood  surging  in  his  veins,  gravely  record 
ing  his  displeasure  because  a  parson  "  with 
a  Crimean  medal  on  his  surplice  "  preached  a 
rousing  battle  sermon  to  the  English  soldiers 
who  had  no  alternative  but  to  fight.  "My 
natural  man,"  confesses  Oliphant  naively,  "  is 
intensely  warlike,  which  is  just  as  low  a  passion 
as  avarice  or  any  other,"  —  a  curious  moral 
perspective,  which  needs  no  word  of  comment, 
and  sufficiently  explains  much  that  was  to 
follow.  We  are  irresistibly  reminded  by  such 
a  verdict  of  Shelley's  swelling  lines  — 

"  War  is  the  statesman's  game,  the  priest's  delight, 
The  lawyer's  jest,  the  hired  assassin's  trade  ;  " 

lines  which,  to  borrow  a  witticism  of  Mr.  Oscar 
Wilde's,  have  "  all  the  vitality  of  error,"  and 
will  probably  be  quoted  triumphantly  by  Peace 
Societies  for  many  years  to  come. 

In  the  mean  time,  there  is  a  remarkable  and 
very  significant  tendency  to  praise  all  war 
songs,  war  stories,  and  war  literature  gener 
ally,  in  proportion  to  the  discomfort  and  hor 
ror  they  excite,  in  proportion  to  their  inartistic 
and  unjustifiable  realism.  I  well  remember, 
when  I  was  a  little  girl,  having  a  dismal 


THE  PRAISES   OF  WAR.  79 

French  tale  by  Erckmann-Chatrian,  called 
"  Le  Coiiscrit,"  given  me  by  a  kindly  disposed 
but  mistaken  friend,  and  the  disgust  with 
which  I  waded  through  those  scenes  of  sordid 
bloodshed  and  misery,  untouched  by  any  fire 
of  enthusiasm,  any  halo  of  romance.  The 
very  first  description  of  Napoleon,  —  Napoleon, 
the  idol  of  my  youthful  dreams,  —  as  a  fat, 
pale  man,  with  a  tuft  of  hair  upon  his  fore 
head,  filled  me  with  loathing  for  all  that  was 
to  follow.  But  I  believe  I  finished  the  book, 
—  it  never  occurred  to  me,  in  those  innocent 
days,  not  to  finish  every  book  that  I  began,  — 
and  then  I  re-read  in  joyous  haste  all  of  Sir 
Walter  Scott's  fighting  novels,  "  Waverley," 
"  Old  Mortality,'*  "  Ivanhoe,"  "  Quentin 
Durward,"  and  even  "  The  Abbot,"  which  has 
one  good  battle,  to  get  the  taste  of  that  abom 
inable  story  out  of  my  mouth.  Of  late  years, 
however,  I  have  heard  a  great  deal  of  French, 
Kussian,  and  occasionally  even  English  litera 
ture  commended  for  the  very  qualities  which 
aroused  my  childish  indignation.  No  one  has 
sung  the  praises  of  war  more  gallantly  than 
Mr.  Rudyard  Kipling ;  yet  those  grim  verses 
called  "  The  Grave  of  the  Hundred  Dead  "  — 


80  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

verses  closely  resembling  the  appalling  speci- 
mens  of  truculency  with  which  Mr.  Ruskin 
began  and  ended  his  brief  poetical  career 
—  have  been  singled  out  from  their  braver 
brethren  for  especial  praise,  and  offered  as 
"  grim,  naked,  ugly  truth  "  to  those  "  who 
would  know  more  of  the  poet's  picturesque 
qualities." 

But  "  grim,  naked,  ugly  truth  "  can  never  be 
made  a  picturesque  quality,  and  it  is  not  the 
particular  business  of  a  battle  poem  to  empha 
size  the  desirability  of  peace.  We  all  know 
the  melancholy  anticlimax  of  Campbell's 
splendid  song  "Ye  Mariners  of  England," 
when,  to  three  admirable  verses,  the  poet  must 
needs  add  a  fourth,  descriptive  of  the  joys 
of  harmony,  and  of  the  eating  and  drinking 
which  shall  replace  the  perils  of  the  sea.  I 
count  it  a  lasting  injury,  after  having  my 
blood  fired  with  these  surging  lines,  — 

"  Where  Blake  and  mighty  Nelson  fell, 
Your  manly  hearts  shall  glow, 
As  ye  sweep  through  the  deep, 
While  the  stormy  winds  do  blow ; 
While  the  battle  rages  loud  and  long, 
And  the  stormy  winds  do  blow,"  — 

to  be  suddenly  introduced  to  a  scene  of  inglo- 


THE  PRAISES    OF   WAR.  81 

rious  junketing ;  and  I  am  not  surprised  that 
Campbell's  peculiar  inspiration,  which  was 
born  of  war  and  of  war  only,  failed  him  the 
instant  he  deserted  his  theme.  Such  shocking 
lines  as 

"  The  meteor-flag  of  England 
Shall  yet  terrific  burn," 

while  quite  in  harmony  with  the  poet's  ordi 
nary  achievements,  would  have  been  simply 
impossible  in  those  first  three  verses  of  "Ye 
Mariners,"  where  he  remains  true  to  his  one 
artistic  impulse.  He  strikes  a  different  and  a 
finer  note  when,  in  "  The  Battle  of  the  Baltic," 
he  turns  gravely  away  from  feasting  and  jollity 
to  remember  the  brave  men  who  have  died  for 
England's  glory :  — 

"  Let  us  think  of  them  that  sleep, 
Full  many  a  fathom  deep, 
By  thy  wild  and  stormy  steep, 
Elsinore !  " 

To  go  back  to  Mr.  Rudyard  Kipling,  how 
ever,  from  whom  I  have  wandered  far,  he  is 
more  in  love  with  the  "  dear  delights  "  of  bat 
tle  than  with  its  dismal  carnage,  and  he  wins 
an  easy  forgiveness  for  a  few  horrors  by  show 
ing  us  much  brave  and  hearty  fighting.  Who 
can  forget  the  little  Gurkhas  drawing  a  deep 


82  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

breath  of  contentment  when  at  last  they  see 
the  foe,  and  gaping  expectantly  at  their  offi 
cers,  "as  terriers  grin  ere  the  stone  is  cast 
for  them  to  fetch  ?  "  Who  can  forget  the 
joyous  abandon  with  which  Mulvaney  the  dis 
reputable  and  his  "four  an'  twenty  young 
wans  "  fling  themselves  upon  Lungtungpen  ? 
It  is  a  good  and  wholesome  thing  for  a  man 
to  be  in  sympathy  with  that  primitive  virtue, 
courage,  to  recognize  it  promptly,  and  to  do 
honor  to  it  under  any  flag.  "  Homer's  heart 
is  with  the  brave  of  either  side,"  observes 
Mr.  Lang ;  "  with  Glaucus  and  Sarpedon  of 
Lycia  no  less  than  with  Achilles  and  Patro- 
clus."  Scott's  heart  is  with  Surrey  and  Dacre 
no  less  than  with  Lennox  and  Argyle ;  with 
the  English  hosts  charging  like  whirlwinds  to 
the  fray  no  less  than  with  the  Scottish  soldiers 
standing  ringed  and  dauntless  around  their 
king.  Theodore  de  Banville,  hot  with  shame 
over  fallen  France,  checks  his  bitterness  to 
write  some  tender  verses  to  the  memory  of  a 
Prussian  boy  found  dead  on  the  field,  with  a 
bullet-pierced  volume  of  Pindar  on  his  breast. 
Dumas,  that  lover  of  all  brave  deeds,  cries  out 
with  noble  enthusiasm  that  it  was  not  enough 


THE  PRAISES   OF  WAR.  83 

to  kill  the  Highlanders  at  Waterloo,  —  "  we 
had  to  push  them  down !  "  and  the  reverse  of 
the  medal  has  been  shown  us  by  Mr.  Lang  in 
the  letter  of  an  English  officer,  who  writes 
home  that  he  would  have  given  the  rest  of  his 
life  to  have  served  with  the  French  cavalry  on 
that  awful  day.  Sir  Francis  Doyle  delights, 
like  an  honest  and  stout-hearted  Briton,  to  pay 
an  equal  tribute  of  praise,  in  rather  question 
able  verse,  to  the  private  of  the  Buffs, 

"  Poor,  reckless,  rude,  low-born,  untaught, 
Bewildered  and  alone,  " 

who  died  for  England's  honor  in  a  far-off 
land;  and  to  the  Indian  prince,  Mehrab 
Khan,  who,  brought  to  bay,  swore  proudly 
that  he  would  perish, 

"to  the  last  the  lord 
Of  all  that  man  can  call  his  own, " 

and  fell  beneath  the  English  bayonets  at  the 
door  of  his  zenana.  This  is  the  spirit  by 
which  brave  men  know  one  another  the  world 
over,  and  which,  lying  back  of  all  healthy 
national  prejudices,  unites  in  a  human  brother- 
hood  those  whom  the  nearness  of  death  ha* 
taught  to  start  at  no  shadows. 


84  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS.       — 

"  Oh,  east  is  east,  and  west  is  west,  and  never  the  two  shall 

meet 
Till  earth  and  sky  stand  presently  at  God's  great  Judgment 

Seat. 
But  there  is  neither  east  nor  west,  border  nor  breed  nor 

birth, 
When  two  strong  men  stand  face  to  face,  though  they  come 

from  the  ends  of  the  earth." 

Here  is  Mr.  Kipling  at  his  best,  and  here, 
too,  is  a  link  somewhat  simpler  and  readier  to 
hand  than  that  much-desired  bond  of  cultiva 
tion  which  Mr.  Oscar  Wilde  assures  us  will 
one  day  knit  the  world  together.  The  time 
when  Germany  will  no  longer  hate  France, 
"because  the  prose  of  France  is  perfect," 
seems  still  as  far-off  as  it  is  fair ;  the  day  when 
"  intellectual  criticism  will  bind  Europe  to 
gether"  dawns  only  in  the  dreamland  of 
desire.  Mr.  Wilde  makes  himself  merry  at 
the  expense  of  "  Peace  Societies,  so  dear  to 
the  sentimentalists,  and  proposals  for  unarmed 
International  Arbitration,  so  popular  among 
those  who  have  never  read  history  ;  "  but  crit 
icism,  the  mediator  of  the  future,  "  will  anni 
hilate  race  prejudices  by  insisting  upon  the 
unity  of  the  human  mind  in  the  variety  of  its 
forms.  If  we  are  tempted  to  make  war  upon 


THE  PRAISES    OF  WAR.  85 

another  nation,  we  shall  remember  that  we  are 
seeking  to  destroy  an  element  of  our  own  cul 
ture,  and  possibly  its  most  important  element." 
This  restraining  impulse  will  allow  us  to  fight 
only  red  Indians,  and  Feejeeans,  and  Bush 
men,  from  whom  no  grace  of  culture  is  to  be 
gleaned;  and  it  may  prove  a  strong  induce 
ment  to  some  disturbed  countries,  like  Ireland 
and  Russia,  to  advance  a  little  further  along 
the  paths  of  sweetness  and  light.  Meanwhile, 
the  world,  which  rolls  so  easily  in  old  and 
well-worn  ways,  will  probably  remember  that 
"  power  is  measured  by  resistance,"  and  will 
go  on  arguing  stolidly  in  platoons. 

"  All  healthy  men  like  fighting  and  like  the 
sense  of  danger ;  all  brave  women  like  to  hear 
of  their  fighting  and  of  their  facing  danger," 
says  Mr.  Ruskin,  who  has  taken  upon  himself 
the  defense  of  war  in  his  own  irresistibly  un 
convincing  manner.  Others  indeed  have  de 
lighted  in  it  from  a  purely  artistic  standpoint, 
or  as  a  powerful  stimulus  to  fancy.  Mr. 
Saintsbury  exults  more  than  most  critics  in 
battle  poems,  and  in  those  "  half -inarticulate 
songs  that  set  the  blood  coursing."  Sir  Fran- 
cis  Doyle,  whose  simple  manly  soul  nevei 


86  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

nrearied  of  such  themes,  had  no  ambition  to 
•mtgrow  the  first  hearty  sympathies  of  his  boy 
hood.  "  I  knew  the  battle  in  '  Marmion '  by 
heart  almost  before  I  could  read,"  he  writes  in 
his  "  Keminiscences  ;  "  "  and  I  cannot  raze  out 
—  I  do  not  wish  to  raze  out  —  of  my  soul  all 
that  filled  and  colored  it  in  years  gone  by." 
Mr.  Froude,  who  is  as  easily  seduced  by  the 
picturesqueness  of  a  sea  fight  as  was  Canon 
Kingsley,  appears  to  believe  in  all  seriousness 
that  the  British  privateers  who  went  plunder 
ing  in  the  Spanish  main  were  inspired  by  a 
pure  love  for  England,  and  a  zeal  for  the 
Protestant  faith.  He  can  say  truly  with  the 
little  boy  of  adventurous  humor,  — 

"  There  is  something-  that  suits  my  mind  to  a  T 
In  the  thought  of  a  reg'lar  Pirate  King." 

Mr.  Lang's  love  of  all  warlike  literature  is 
too  well  known  to  need  comment.  As  a  child, 
he  confesses  he  pored  over  "the  fightingest 
parts  of  the  Bible,"  when  Sunday  deprived 
him  of  less  hallowed  reading.  As  a  boy,  he 
devoted  to  Sir  Walter  Scott  the  precious  hours 
which  were  presumably  sacred  to  the  shrine  of 
Latin  grammar.  As  a  man,  he  lures  us  with 
glowing  words  from  the  consideration  of  politi* 


THE  PRAISES   OF  WAR.  87 

cal  problems,  or  of  our  own  complicated  spirit 
ual  machinery,  to  follow  the  fortunes  of  the 
brave,  fierce  men  who  fought  in  the  lonely 
north,  or  of  the  heroes  who  went  forth  in 
gilded  armor  "  to  win  glory  or  to  give  it "  be 
fore  the  walls  of  Troy.  In  these  days,  when 
many  people  find  it  easier  to  read  "  The  Ring 
and  the  Book  "  than  the  Iliad,  Mr.  Lang  makes 
a  strong  plea  in  behalf  of  that  literature  which 
has  come  down  to  us  out  of  the  past  to  stand 
forevermore  unrivaled  and  alone,  stirring  the 
hearts  of  all  generations  until  human  nature 
shall  be  warped  from  simple  and  natural  lines. 
"  With  the  Bible  and  Shakespeare,"  he  says, 
"  the  Homeric  poems  are  the  best  training  for 
life.  There  is  no  good  quality  that  they  lack ; 
manliness,  courage,  reverence  for  old  age  and 
for  the  hospitable  hearth,  justice,  piety,  pity, 
a  brave  attitude  towards  life  and  death,  are  all 
conspicuous  in  Homer."  It  might  be  well, 
perhaps,  to  add  to  this  long  list  one  more  in 
comparable  virtue,  an  instinctive  and  illogical 
delight  in  living.  Amid  shipwrecks  and  bat 
tles,  amid  long  wanderings  and  hurtling  spears, 
amid  sharp  dangers  and  sorrows  bitter  to  bear, 
Homer  teaches  us,  and  teaches  us  in  right  joy- 


88  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

ful  fashion,  the  beauty  and  value  of  an  ex. 
istence  which  we  profess  nowadays  to  find  a 
little  burdensome  on  our  hands. 

All  these  things  have  the  lovers  of  war  said 
to  us,  and  in  all  these  ways  have  they  striven 
to  fire  our  hearts.  But  Mr.  Rusjdn  is  not 
content  to  regard  any  matter  from  a  purely 
artistic  standpoint,  or  to  judge  it  on  natural 
and  congenital  lines  ;  he  must  indorse  it  ethi 
cally  or  condemn.  Accordingly,  it  is  not 
enough  for  him,  as  it  would  be  for  any  other 
man,  to  claim  that  "  no  great  art  ever  yet  rose 
on  earth  but  among  a  nation  of  soldiers."  He 
feels  it  necessary  to  ask  himself  some  searching 
and  embarrassing  questions  about  fighting 
"  for  its  own  sake,"  and  as  "  a  grand  pastime," 
—  questions  which  he  naturally  finds  it  ex 
tremely  difficult  to  answer.  It  is  not  enough 
for  him  to  say,  with  equal  truth  and  justice, 
that  if  "  brave  death  in  a  red  coat  "  be  no  bet 
ter  than  "brave  life  in  a  black  one,"  it  is  at 
least  every  bit  as  good.  He  must  needs  wax 
serious,  and  commit  himself  to  this  strong  and 
doubtful  statement :  — 

"  Assume  the  knight  merely  to  have  ridden 
out  occasionally  to  fight  his  neighbor  for  exer- 


THE  PRAISES   OF  WAR.  89 

else ;  assume  him  even  a  soldier  of  fortune, 
and  to  have  gained  his  bread  and  filled  his 
purse  at  the  sword's  point.  Still  I  feel  as  if 
it  were,  somehow,  grander  and  worthier  in  him 
to  have  made  his  bread  by  sword  play  than 
any  other  play.  I  had  rather  he  had  made 
it  by  thrusting  than  by  batting,  —  much  more 
than  by  betting ;  much  rather  that  he  should 
ride  war  horses  than  back  race  horses  ;  and  — 
I  say  it  sternly  and  deliberately  —  much 
rather  would  I  have  him  slay  his  neighbor 
than  cheat  him." 

Perhaps,  in  deciding  a  point  as  delicate  as 
this,  it  would  not  be  altogether  amiss  to  con 
sult  the  subject  acted  upon ;  in  other  words, 
the  neighbor,  who,  whatever  may  be  his  preju 
dice  against  dishonest  handling,  might  proba 
bly  prefer  it  to  the  last  irredeemable  disaster. 
In  this  commercial  age  we  get  tolerably  ac 
customed  to  being  cheated  —  like  the  skinned 
eel,  we  are  used  to  it,  —  but  there  is  an  old 
rhyme  which  tells  us  plainly  that  a  broken 
neck  is  beyond  all  help  of  healing. 

No,  it  is  best,  when  we  treat  a  theme  as 
many-sided  as  war,  to  abandon  modern  in 
quisitorial  methods,  and  confine  ourselves  to 


90  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

lihat  good  old-fashioned  simplicity  which  was 
content  to  take  short  obvious  views  of  life.  It 
is  best  to  leave  ethics  alone,  and  ride  as  lightly 
as  we  may.  The  finest  poems  of  battle  and  of 
camp  have  been  written  in  this  unincumbered 
spirit,  as,  for  example,  that  lovely  little  snatch 
of  song  from  "  Rokeby :  "  — 

"  A  weary  lot  is  thine,  fair  maid, 

A  weary  lot  is  thine  ! 
To  pull  the  thorn  thy  brow  to  braid, 

And  press  the  rue  for  wine. 
A  lightsome  eye,  a  soldier's  mien, 

A  feather  of  the  blue, 
A  doublet  of  the  Lincoln  green,  — 

No  more  of  me  you  knew, 
My  love ! 

No  more  of  me  you  knew." 

And  this  other,  far  less  familiar,  which  I  quote 
from  Lockhart's  Spanish  Ballads,  and  which 
is  fitly  called  "The  Wandering  Knight's 
Song:"  — 

"  My  ornaments  are  arms, 
My  pastime  is  in  war, 
My  bed  is  cold  upon  the  wold, 
My  lamp  yon  star. 

"  My  journeyings  are  long, 

My  slumbers  short  and  broken ; 
From  hill  to  hill  I  wander  still, 
Kissing  thy  token. 


THE  PRAISES  OF  WAR.  91 

"  I  ride  from  land  to  land, 
I  sail  from  sea  to  sea ; 
Some  day  more  kind  I  fate  may  find, 
Some  night,  kiss  thee." 

Now,  apart  from  the  charming  felicity  of  these 
lines,  we  cannot  but  be  struck  with  their 
singleness  of  conception  and  purpose.  "  The 
Wandering  Knight "  is  well-nigh  as  disincum- 
bered  of  mental  as  of  material  luggage.  He 
rides  as  free  from  our  tangled  perplexity  of 
introspection  as  from  our  irksome  contrivances 
for  comfort.  It  is  not  that  he  is  precisely 
guileless  or  ignorant.  One  does  not  journey 
far  over  the  world  without  learning  the  world's 
ways,  and  the  ways  of  the  men  who  dwell  upon 
her.  But  the  knowledge  of  things  looked  at 
from  the  outside  is  never  the  knowledge  that 
wears  one's  soul  away,  and  the  traveling  com 
panion  that  Lord  Byron  found  so  ennuyant, 

"The  blight  of  life  — the  demon  Thought," 

forms  no  part  of  the  "  Wandering  Knight's  " 
equipment.  As  I  read  this  little  fugitive  song 
which  has  drifted  down  into  an  alien  age,  I 
feel  an  envious  liking  for  those  days  when  the 
tumult  of  existence  made  its  triumph,  when 
action  fanned  the  embers  of  joy,  and  wheK 


92  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

people  were  too  busy  with  each  hour  of  life,  as 
it  came,  to  question  the  usefulness  or  desira 
bility  of  the  whole. 

There  is  one  more  point  to  consider.  Mr 
Saintsbury  appears  to  think  it  strange  that 
battles,  when  they  occur,  and  especially  when 
they  chance  to  be  victories,  should  not  imme 
diately  inspire  good  war  songs.  But  this  is 
seldom  or  never  the  case,  "  The  Charge  of  the 
Light  Brigade  "  being  an  honorable  exception 
to  the  rule.  Drayton's  heroic  ballad  was  writ 
ten  nearly  two  hundred  years  after  the  battle 
of  Agincourt ;  Flodden  is  a  tale  of  defeat ; 
and  Campbell,  whose  songs  are  so  intoxicat- 
ingly  warlike,  belonged,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  to 
the  "Peace  at  all  price"  party.  The  fact  is 
that  a  battle  fought  five  hundred  years  ago  is 
just  as  inspiring  to  the  poet  as  a  battle  fought 
yesterday ;  and  a  brave  deed,  the  memory  of 
which  comes  down  to  us  through  centuries, 
stirs  our  hearts  as  profoundly  as  though  we 
witnessed  it  in  our  own  time.  Sarpedon,  leap 
ing  lightly  from  his  chariot  to  dare  an  un 
equal  combat ;  the  wounded  knight,  Schon- 
burg,  dragging  himself  painfully  from  amid 
the  dead  and  dying  to  offer  his  silver  shield  to 


THE  PRAISES   OF  WAR.  93 

his  defenseless  emperor  ;  the  twenty  kinsmen 
of  the  noble  family  of  Trauttmansdorf  who 
fell,  under  Frederick  of  Austria,  in  the  single 
battle  of  Miihldorf ;  the  English  lad,  young 
Anstruther,  who  carried  the  queen's  colors  of 
the  Royal  Welsh  at  the  storming  of  Sebasto- 
pol,  and  who,  swift-footed  as  a  schoolboy,  was 
the  first  to  gain  the  great  redoubt,  and  stood 
there  one  happy  moment,  holding  his  flagstaff 
and  breathing  hard,  before  he  was  shot  dead, 
—  these  are  the  pictures  whose  value  distance 
can  never  lessen,  and  whose  colors  time  can 
never  dim.  These  are  the  deeds  that  belong 
to  all  ages  and  to  all  nations,  a  heritage  for 
every  man  who  walks  this  troubled  earth. 
"  All  this  the  gods  have  fashioned,  and  have 
woven  the  skein  of  death  for  men,  that  there 
might  be  a  song  in  the  ears  even  of  the  folk 
of  after  time." 


LEISURE. 

"  Zounds  !  how  has  he  the  leisure  to  be  sick  ?  n 

A  VISITOR  strolling  through  the  noble 
woods  of  Ferney  complimented  Voltaire  on 
the  splendid  growth  of  his  trees.  "Ay,v  replied 
the  great  wit,  half  in  scorn  and  half,  perhaps, 
in  envy,  "  they  have  nothing  else  to  do  ;  "  and 
walked  on,  deigning  no  further  word  of  appro 
bation. 

Has  it  been  more  than  a  hundred  years 
since  this  distinctly  modern  sentiment  was 
uttered, — more  than  a  hundred  years  since 
the  spreading  chestnut  boughs  bent  kindly 
over  the  lean,  strenuous,  caustic,  disappointed 
man  of  genius  who  always  had  so  much  to 
do,  and  who  found  in  the  doing  of  it  a 
mingled  bliss  and  bitterness  that  scorched 
him  like  fever  pain  ?  How  is  it  that,  while 
Dr.  Johnson's  sledge-hammer  repartees  sound 
like  the  sonorous  echoes  of  a  past  age,  Vol 
taire's  remarks  always  appear  to  have  beer 


LEISURE.  95 

spoken  the  day  before  yesterday?  They  are 
the  kind  of  witticisms  which  we  do  not  say 
for  ourselves,  simply  because  we  are  not  witty ; 
but  they  illustrate  with  biting  accuracy  the 
spirit  of  restlessness,  of  disquiet,  of  intellec 
tual  vanity  and  keen  contention  which  is  the 
brand  of  our  vehement  and  over-zealous  gen 
eration. 

44  The  Gospel  of  Work  "  —  that  is  the  phrase 
woven  insistently  into  every  homily,  every 
appeal  made  to  the  conscience  or  the  intelli 
gence  of  a  people  who  are  now  straining  their 
youthful  energy  to  its  utmost  speed.  "  Blessed 
be  Drudgery  !  "  —  that  is  the  text  deliberately 
chosen  for  a  discourse  which  has  enjoyed  such 
amazing  popularity  that  sixty  thousand  printed 
copies  have  been  found  all  inadequate  to  sup 
ply  the  ravenous  demand.  Readers  of  Dick 
ens  —  if  any  one  has  the  time  to  read  Dickens 
nowadays  —  may  remember  Miss  Monflather's 
inspired  amendment  of  that  familiar  poem 
concerning  the  Busy  Bee  :  — 

"  In  work,  work,  work.     In  work  alway, 
Let  my  first  years  be  past." 

And  when  our  first  years  are  past,  the  same 
programme  is  considered  adequate  and  satis- 


96  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

factory  to  the  end.  "A  whole  lifetime  of 
horrid  industry,"  —  to  quote  Mr.  Bagehot's 
uninspired  words,  —  this  is  the  prize  dangled 
alluringly  before  our  tired  eyes;  and  if  we 
are  disposed  to  look  askance  upon  the  booty, 
then  vanity  is  subtly  pricked  to  give  zest  to 
faltering  resolution.  "  Our  virtues  would  be 
proud  if  our  faults  whipped  them  not ;  "  they 
would  be  laggards  in  the  field  if  our  faults  did 
not  sometimes  spur  them  to  action.  It  is  the 
paean  of  self-glorification  that  wells  up  perpet 
ually  from  press  and  pulpit,  from  public  ora 
tors,  and  from  what  is  courteously  called  liter 
ature,  that  keeps  our  courage  screwed  to  the 
sticking  place,  and  veils  the  occasional  bare 
ness  of  the  result  with  a  charitable  vesture  of 
self-delusion. 

Work  is  good.  No  one  seriously  doubts 
this  truth.  Adam  may  have  doubted  it  when 
he  first  took  spade  in  hand,  and  Eve  when 
she  scoured  her  first  pots  and  kettles  ;  but  in 
the  course  of  a  few  thousand  years  we  have 
learned  to  know  and  value  this  honest, 
troublesome,  faithful,  and  extremely  exacting 
friend.  But  work  is  not  the  only  good  thing 
in  the  world  ;  it  is  not  a  fetich  to  be  adored  ; 


LEISURE.  97 

neither  is  it  to  be  judged,  like  a  sum  in  addi 
tion,  by  its  outward  and  immediate  results. 
The  god  of  labor  does  not  abide  exclusively 
in  the  rolling-mill,  the  law  courts,  or  the  corn 
field.  He  has  a  twin  sister  whose  name  is 
leisure,  and  in  her  society  he  lingers  now  and 
then  to  the  lasting  gain  of  both. 

Sainte-Beuve,  writing  of  Mme.  de  Sevigne 
and  her  time,  says  that  we,  "  with  our  habits 
of  positive  occupation,  can  scarcely  form  a 
just  conception  of  that  life  of  leisure  and 
chit-chat."  "  Conversations  were  infinite," 
admits  Mme.  de  Sevigne  herself,  recalling  the 
long  summer  afternoons  when  she  and  her 
guests  walked  in  the  charming  woods  of  Les 
Rochers  until  the  shadows  of  twilight  fell. 
The  whole  duty  of  life  seemed  to  be  con 
centrated  in  the  pleasant  task  of  entertain 
ing  your  friends  when  they  were  with  you, 
or  writing  them  admirable  letters  when  they 
were  absent.  Occasionally  there  came,  even 
to  this  tranquil  and  finely  poised  French 
woman,  a  haunting  consciousness  that  there 
might  be  other  and  harder  work  for  human 
hands  to  do.  "Nothing  is  accomplished  day 
by  day,"  she  writes,  doubtfully ;  "  and  life  is 


98  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

made  up  of  days,  and  we  grow  old  and  die." 
This  troubled  her  a  little,  when  she  was  all 
the  while  doing  work  that  was  to  last  for 
generations,  work  that  was  to  give  pleasure 
to  men  and  women  whose  great-grandfathers 
were  then  unborn.  Not  that  we  have  the 
time  now  to  read  Mme.  de  Sevigne !  Why, 
there  are  big  volumes  of  these  delightful 
letters,  and  who  can  afford  to  read  big  vol 
umes  of  anything,  merely  for  the  sake  of  the 
enjoyment  to  be  extracted  therefrom  ?  It  was 
all  very  well  for  Sainte-Beuve  to  say  "  Lisons 
tout  Mme.  de  Sevigne,"  when  the  question 
arose  how  should  some  long  idle  days  in  a 
country-house  be  profitably  employed.  It  was 
all  very  well  for  Sainte-Beuve  to  plead,  with 
touching  confidence  in  the  intellectual  pas 
times  of  his  contemporaries,  "  Let  us  treat 
Mme.  de  Sevigne  as  we  treat  Clarissa  Har- 
lowe,  when  we  have  a  fortnight  of  leisure 
and  rainy  weather  in  the  country."  A  fort 
night  of  leisure  and  rainy  weather  in  the 
country !  The  words  would  be  antiquated 
even  for  Dr.  Johnson.  Rain  may  fall  or  rain 
may  cease,  but  leisure  comes  not  so  lightly 
to  our  calling.  Nay,  Sainte-Beuve 's  wistful 


LEISURE.  99 

amazement  at  the  polished  and  cultivated 
inactivity  which  alone  could  produce  such  a 
correspondence  as  Mme.  de  Sevigne's  is  not 
greater  than  our  wistful  amazement  at  the 
critic's  conception  of  possible  idleness  in  bad 
weather.  In  one  respect  at  least  we  follow 
his  good  counsel.  We  do  treat  Mme.  de  Se- 
vigne*  precisely  as  we  treat  Clarissa  Harlowe  ; 
that  is,  we  leave  them  both  severely  alone, 
as  being  utterly  beyond  the  reach  of  what  we 
are  pleased  to  call  our  time. 

And  what  of  the  leisure  of  Montaigne,  who, 
taking  his  life  in  his  two  hands,  disposed  of  it 
as  he  thought  fit,  with  no  restless  self-accusa 
tions  on  the  score  of  indolence.  In  the  world 
and  of  the  world,  yet  always  able  to  meet  and 
greet  the  happy  solitude  of  Gascony ;  toiling 
with  no  thought  of  toil,  but  rather  "  to  enter- 
taine  my  spirit  as  it  best  pleased,"  this  man 
wrought  out  of  time  a  coin  which  passes 
current  over  the  reading  world.  And  what 
of  Horace,  who  enjoyed  an  industrious  idle 
ness,  the  bare  description  of  which  sets  our 
hearts  aching  with  desire  !  "The  picture 
which  Horace  draws  of  himself  in  his  coun 
try  home,"  says  an  envious  English  critic, 


100  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

b  affords  us  a  delightful  glimpse  of  such  liter 
ary  leisure  as  is  only  possible  in  the  golden 
days  of  good  Haroun-Al-Kaschid.  Horace 
goes  to  bed  and  gets  up  when  he  likes  ;  there 
is  no  one  to  drag  him  down  to  the  law  courts 
the  first  thing  in  the  morning,  to  remind  him 
of  an  important  engagement  with  his  brother 
scribes,  to  solicit  his  interest  with  Maecenas, 
or  to  tease  him  about  public  affairs  and  the 
latest  news  from  abroad.  He  can  bury  him 
self  in  his  Greek  authors,  or  ramble  through 
the  woody  glens  which  lie  at  the  foot  of 
Mount  Ustica,  without  a  thought  of  business 
or  a  feeling  that  he  ought  to  be  otherwise  en 
gaged."  "  Swim  smoothly  in  the  stream  of 
thy  nature,  and  live  but  one  man,"  counsels 
Sir  Thomas  Browne ;  and  it  may  be  this 
gentle  current  will  bear  us  as  bravely  through 
life  as  if  we  buffeted  our  strength  away  in  the 
restless  ocean  of  endeavor. 

Leisure  has  a  value  of  its  own.  It  is  not  a 
mere  handmaid  of  labor ;  it  is  something  we 
should  know  how  to  cultivate,  to  use,  and  to 
enjoy.  It  has  a  distinct  and  honorable  place 
wherever  nations  are  released  from  the  pres 
sure  of  their  first  rude  needs,  their  first  homely 


LEIS  URE. 


101 


toil,  and  rise  to  happier  levels  of  grace  and 
intellectual  repose.  "  Civilization,  in  its  final 
outcome,"  says  the  keen  young  author  of 
"  The  Chevalier  of  Pensieri-Vani,"  "  is  heavily 
in  the  debt  of  leisure ;  and  the  success  of  any 
society  worth  considering  is  to  be  estimated 
largely  by  the  use  to  which  its  fortunati  put 
their  spare  moments."  Here  is  a  sentiment 
so  relentlessly  true  that  nobody  wants  to  be 
lieve  it.  We  prefer  uttering  agreeable  plati 
tudes  concerning  the  blessedness  of  drudgery 
and  the  iniquity  of  eating  bread  earned  by 
another's  hands.  Yet  the  creation  of  an  ar 
tistic  and  intellectual  atmosphere  in  which 
workers  can  work,  the  expansion  of  a  noble 
sympathy  with  all  that  is  finest  and  most 
beautiful,  the  jealous  guardianship  of  what 
ever  makes  the  glory  and  distinction  of  a 
nation ;  this  is  achievement  enough  for  the 
fortunati  of  any  land,  and  this  is  the  debt 
they  owe.  It  can  hardly  be  denied  that  the 
lack  of  scholarship  —  of  classical  scholarship 
especially  —  at  our  universities  is  due  pri 
marily  to  the  labor-worship  which  is  the  prev- 
alent  superstition  of  our  day,  and  which,  like 
all  superstitions,  has  gradually  degraded  its 


IN  IDLENESS. 

god  into  an  idol,  and  lost  sight  of  the  higher 
powers  and  attributes  beyond.  The  student 
who  is  pleased  to  think  a  knowledge  of  Ger, 
man  "  more  useful "  than  a  knowledge  of 
Greek ;  the  parent  who  deliberately  declares 
that  his  boys  have  "  no  time  to  waste  "  over 
Homer  ;  the  man  who  closes  the  doors  of  his 
mind  to  everything  that  does  not  bear  directly 
on  mathematics,  or  chemistry,  or  engineering, 
or  whatever  he  calls  "  work ;  "  all  these  plead 
in  excuse  the  exigencies  of  life,  the  absolute 
and  imperative  necessity  of  labor. 

It  would  appear,  then,  that  we  have  no 
fortunati,  that  we  are  not  yet  rich  enough  to 
afford  the  greatest  of  all  luxuries  —  leisure  to 
cultivate  and  enjoy  "  the  best  that  has  been 
known  and  thought  in  the  world."  This  is  a 
pity,  because  there  seems  to  be  money  in  plenty 
for  so  many  less  valuable  things.  The  yearly 
taxes  of  the  United  States  sound  to  innocent 
ears  like  the  fabled  wealth  of  the  Orient ;  the 
yearly  expenditures  of  the  people  are  on  no 
rigid  scale ;  yet  we  are  too  poor  to  harbor  the 
priceless  literature  of  the  past  because  it  is  not 
a  paying  investment,  because  it  will  not  put 
bread  in  our  mouths  nor  clothes  on  our  shiver- 


LEISURE.  103 

ing  nakedness.  "  Poverty  is  a  most  odious 
calling,"  sighed  Burton  many  years  ago,  and 
we  have  good  cause  to  echo  his  lament.  Until 
We  are  able  to  believe,  with  that  enthusiastic 
Greek  scholar,  Mr.  Butcher,  that  "  intellectual 
training  is  an  end  in  itself,  and  not  a  mere 
preparation  for  a  trade  or  a  profession ;  "  until 
we  begin  to  understand  that  there  is  a  leisure 
which  does  not  mean  an  easy  sauntering 
through  life,  but  a  special  form  of  activity, 
employing  all  our  faculties,  and  training  us  to 
the  adequate  reception  of  whatever  is  most 
valuable  in  literature  and  art ;  until  we  learn 
to  estimate  the  fruits  of  self-culture  at  their 
proper  worth,  we  are  still  far  from  reaping  the 
harvest  of  three  centuries  of  toil  and  struggle ; 
we  are  still  as  remote  as  ever  from  the  serenity 
of  intellectual  accomplishment. 

There  is  a  strange  pleasure  in  work  wedded 
to  leisure,  in  work  which  has  grown  beautiful 
because  its  rude  necessities  are  softened  and 
humanized  by  sentiment  and  the  subtle  grace 
of  association.  A  little  paragraph  from  the 
journal  of  Eugenie  de  Guerin  illustrates  with 
charming  simplicity  the  gilding  of  common 
toil  by  the  delicate  touch  of  a  cultivated  and 
sympathetic  intelligence :  — 


104  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

"  A  day  spent  in  spreading  out  a  large  wash 
leaves  little  to  say,  and  yet  it  is  rather  pretty, 
too,  to  lay  the  white  linen  on  the  grass,  or  to 
see  it  float  on  lines.  One  may  fancy  one's  self 
Homer's  Nausicaa,  or  one  of  those  Biblical 
princesses  who  washed  their  brothers'  tunics. 
We  have  a  basin  at  Moulinasse  that  you  have 
never  seen,  sufficiently  large,  and  full  to  the 
brim  of  water.  It  embellishes  the  hollow,  and 
attracts  the  birds  who  like  a  cool  place  to 
sing  in." 

In  the  same  spirit,  Maurice  de  Guerin  con 
fesses  frankly  the  pleasure  he  takes  in  gather 
ing  fagots  for  the  winter  fire,  "  that  little  task 
of  the  woodcutter  which  brings  us  close  to 
nature,"  and  which  was  also  a  favorite  occupa 
tion  of  M.  de  Lamennais.  The  fagot  gather 
ing,  indeed,  can  hardly  be  said  to  have 
assumed  the  proportions  of  real  toil;  it  was 
rather  a  pastime  where  play  was  thinly  dis 
guised  by  a  pretty  semblance  of  drudgery. 
"  Idleness,"  admits  de  Guerin,  "  but  idleness 
full  of  thought,  and  alive  to  every  impres 
sion."  Eugenie's  labors,  however,  had  other 
aspects  and  bore  different  fruit.  There  is 
nothing  intrinsically  charming  in  stitching 


LEISURE.  105 

seams,  hanging  out  clothes,  or  scorching  one's 
fingers  over  a  kitchen  fire;  yet  every  page 
in  the  journal  of  this  nobly  born  French  girl 
reveals  to  us  the  nearness  of  work,  work  made 
sacred  by  the  prompt  fulfillment  of  visible 
duties,  and  —  what  is  more  rare  —  made  beau 
tiful  by  that  distinction  of  mind  which  was 
the  result  of  alternating  hours  of  finely  culti 
vated  leisure.  A  very  ordinary  and  estimable 
young  woman  might  have  spread  her  wash 
upon  the  grass  with  honest  pride  at  the  white 
ness  of  her  linen  ;  but  it  needed  the  solitude 
of  Le  Cayla,  the  few  books,  well  read  and 
well  worth  reading,  the  life  of  patriarchal 
simplicity,  and  the  habit  of  sustained  and 
delicate  thought,  to  awaken  in  the  worker's 
mind  the  graceful  association  of  ideas,  —  the 
pretty  picture  of  Nausicaa  and  her  maidens 
cleansing  their  finely  woven  webs  in  the  cool, 
rippling  tide. 

For  it  is  self-culture  that  warms  the  chilly 
earth  wherein  no  good  seed  can  mature;  it 
is  self-culture  that  distinguishes  between  the 
work  which  has  inherent  and  lasting  value 
and  the  work  which  represents  conscientious 
activity  and  no  more.  And  for  the  training 


106  JESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

of  one's  self,  leisure  is  requisite ;  leisure  and 
that  rare  modesty  which  turns  a  man's 
thoughts  back  to  his  own  shortcomings  and 
requirements,  and  extinguishes  in  him  the 
burning  desire  to  enlighten  his  fellow-beings. 
"We  might  make  ourselves  spiritual  by  de 
taching  ourselves  from  action,  and  become 
perfect  by  the  rejection  of  energy,"  says  Mr. 
Oscar  Wilde,  who  delights  in  scandalizing  his 
patient  readers,  and  who  lapses  unconsciously 
into  something  resembling  animation  over  the 
wrongs  inflicted  by  the  solemn  preceptors  of 
mankind.  The  notion  that  it  is  worth  while 
to  learn  a  thing  only  if  you  intend  to  impart 
it  to  others  is  widespread  and  exceedingly 
popular.  I  have  myself  heard  an  excellent 
and  anxious  aunt  say  to  her  young  niece, 
then  working  hard  at  college,  "  But,  my  dear, 
why  do  you  give  so  much  of  your  time  to 
Greek?  You  don't  expect  to  teach  it,  do 
you  ? "  —  as  if  there  were  no  other  use  to 
be  gained,  no  other  pleasure  to  be  won  from 
that  noble  language,  in  which  lies  hidden 
the  hoarded  treasure  of  centuries.  To  study 
Greek  in  order  to  read  and  enjoy  it,  and 
thereby  make  life  better  worth  the  living, 


LEISURE.  107 

is  a  possibility  that  seldom  enters  the  practi 
cal  modern  mind. 

Yet  this  restless  desire  to  give  out  infor 
mation,  like  alms,  is  at  best  a  questionable 
bounty ;  this  determination  to  share  one's  wis 
dom  with  one's  unwilling  fellow-creatures  is  a 
noble  impulse  provocative  of  general  discon 
tent.  When  Southey,  writing  to  James  Murray 
about  a  dialogue  which  he  proposes  to  publish 
in  the  "  Quarterly,"  says,  with  characteristic 
complacency :  "  I  have  very  little  doubt  that  it 
will  excite  considerable  attention,  and  lead 
many  persons  into  a  wholesome  train  of 
thought, "  we  feel  at  once  how  absolutely  fa 
miliar  is  the  sentiment,  and  how  absolutely 
hopeless  is  literature  approached  in  this  spirit. 
The  same  principle,  working  under  different 
conditions  to-day,  entangles  us  in  a  network  of 
lectures,  which  have  become  the  chosen  field 
for  every  educational  novelty,  and  the  diversion 
of  the  mentally  unemployed. 

Charles  Lamb  has  recorded  distinctly  his 
veneration  for  the  old-fashioned  schoolmaster 
who  taught  his  Greek  and  Latin  in  leisurely 
fashion  day  after  day,  with  no  thought  wasted 
upon  more  superficial  or  practical  acquirements, 


108  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

and  who  "  came  to  his  task  as  to  a  sport."  He 
has  made  equally  plain  his  aversion  for  the  new 
fangled  pedagogue  —  new  in  his  time,  at  least 
— who  could  not  "relish  a  beggar  or  a  gypsy" 
without  seeking  to  collect  or  to  impart  some 
statistical  information  on  the  subject.  A  gen 
tleman  of  this  calibre,  his  fellow -traveler  in 
a  coach,  once  asked  him  if  he  had  ever  made 
"  any  calculation  as  to  the  value  of  the  rental 
of  all  the  retail  shops  in  London  ?  "  and  the 
magnitude  of  the  question  so  overwhelmed 
Lamb  that  he  could  not  even  stammer  out  a 
confession  of  his  ignorance.  "  To  go  preach 
to  the  first  passer-by,  to  become  tutor  to  the 
ignorance  of  the  first  thing  I  meet,  is  a  task 
I  abhor,"  observes  Montaigne,  who  must  cer 
tainly  have  been  the  most  acceptable  compan 
ion  of  his  day. 

Dr.  Johnson,  too,  had  scant  sympathy  with 
insistent  and  arrogant  industry.  He  could 
work  hard  enough  when  circumstances  de 
manded  it ;  but  he  "  always  felt  an  inclination 
to  do  nothing,"  and  not  infrequently  gratified 
his  desires.  "  No  man,  sir,  is  obliged  to  do  as 
much  as  he  can.  A  man  should  have  part  of 
his  life  to  himself,"  was  the  good  doctor's 


LEISURE.  109 

joundly  heterodox  view,  advanced  upon  many 
occasions.  He  hated  to  hear  people  boast  of 
their  assiduity,  and  nipped  such  vain  preten 
sions  in  the  bud  with  frosty  scorn.  When  he 
and  Bos  well  journeyed  together  in  the  Har 
wich  stage-coach,  a  ufat,  elderly  gentle-wo 
man,"  who  had  been  talking  freely  of  her  own 
affairs,  wound  up  by  saying  that  she  never 
permitted  any  of  her  children  to  be  for  a 
moment  idle.  "I  wish,  madam,"  said  Dr. 
Johnson  testily,  "  that  you  would  educate  me 
too,  for  I  have  been  an  idle  fellow  all  my  life." 
"  I  am  sure,  sir,"  protested  the  woman  with 
dismayed  politeness,  "  you  have  not  been  idle." 
"  Madam,"  was  the  retort,  "  it  is  true  !  And 
that  gentleman  there "  —  pointing  to  poor 
young  Boswell  — "  has  been  idle  also.  He 
was  idle  in  Edinburgh.  His  father  sent  him 
to  Glasgow,  where  he  continued  to  be  idle. 
He  came  to  London,  where  he  has  been  very 
idle.  And  now  he  is  going  to  Utrecht,  where 
he  will  be  as  idle  as  ever." 

That  there  was  a  background  of  truth  in 
these  spirited  assertions  we  have  every  reason 
to  be  grateful.  Dr.  Johnson's  value  to-day 
does  not  depend  on  the  number  of  essays,  01 


110  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

reviews,  or  dedications  he  wrote  in  a  year,  -~ 
some  years  he  wrote  nothing,  —  but  on  his  own 
sturdy  and  splendid  personality ;  "  the  real 
primate,  the  soul's  teacher  of  all  England," 
says  Carlyle  ;  a  great  embodiment  of  uncom 
promising  goodness  and  sense.  Every  genera 
tion  needs  such  a  man,  not  to  compile  diction 
aries,  but  to  preserve  the  balance  of  sanity, 
and  few  generations  are  blest  enough  to  possess 
him.  As  for  Boswell,  he  might  have  toiled  in 
the  law  courts  until  he  was  gray  without  ben 
efiting  or  amusing  anybody.  It  was  in  the 
nights  he  spent  drinking  port  wine  at  the 
Mitre,  and  in  the  days  he  spent  trotting,  like 
a  terrier,  at  his  master's  heels,  that  the  seed 
was  sown  which  was  to  give  the  world  a  mas* 
terpiece  of  literature,  the  most  delightful  bi 
ography  that  has  ever  enriched  mankind.  It 
is  to  leisure  that  we  owe  the  "  Life  of  Johnson," 
and  a  heavy  debt  we  must,  in  all  integrity, 
acknowledge  it  to  be. 

Mr.  Shortreed  said  truly  of  Sir  Walter 
Scott  that  he  was  "making  himself  in  the 
busy,  idle  pleasures  of  his  youth  ;  "  in  those 
long  rambles  by  hill  and  dale,  those  whimsical 
adventures  in  farmhouses,  those  merry,  puiv 


LEISURE.  Ill 

poseless  journeys  in  which  the  eager  lad  tasted 
the  flavor  of  life.  At  home  such  unauthor 
ized  amusements  were  regarded  with  emphatic 
disapprobation.  "  I  greatly  doubt,  sir,"  said 
his  father  to  him  one  day,  "that  you  were 
born  for  nae  better  than  a  gangrel  scrape-gut!  " 
and  one  half  pities  the  grave  clerk  to  the  Sig 
net,  whose  own  life  had  been  so  decorously 
dull,  and  who  regarded  with  affectionate  so 
licitude  his  lovable  and  incomprehensible  son. 
In  later  years  Sir  Walter  recognized  keenly 
that  his  wasted  school  hours  entailed  on  him  a 
lasting  loss,  a  loss  he  was  determined  his  sons 
should  never  know.  It  is  to  be  forever  re 
gretted  that  "  the  most  Homeric  of  modern 
men  could  not  read  Homer."  But  every  day 
he  stole  from  the  town  to  give  to  the  country, 
every  hour  he  stole  from  law  to  give  to  liter 
ature,  every  minute  he  stole  from  work  to 
give  to  pleasure,  counted  in  the  end  as  gain. 
It,  is  in  his  pleasures  that  a  man  really  lives, 
it  is  from  his  leisure  that  he  constructs  the  true 
fabric  of  self.  Perhaps  Charles  Lamb's  fellow- 
clerks  thought  that  because  his  days  were 
spent  at  a  desk  in  the  East  India  House,  his 
life  was  spent  there  too.  His  life  was  far 


112  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

Demote  from  that  routine  of  labor  ;  built  up  of 
golden  moments  of  respite,  enriched  with  joys, 
chastened  by  sorrows,  vivified  by  impulses 
that  had  no  filiation  with  his  daily  toil.  "  For 
the  time  that  a  man  may  call  his  own,"  he 
writes  to  Wordsworth,  "  that  is  his  life/' 
The  Lamb  who  worked  in  the  India  House, 
and  who  had  "  no  skill  in  figures,"  has  passed 
away,  and  is  to-day  but  a  shadow  and  a  name. 
The  Lamb  of  the  "  Essays  "  and  the  "  Letters  " 
lives  for  us  now,  and  adds  each  year  his 
generous  share  to  the  innocent  gayety  of  the 
world.  This  is  the  Lamb  who  said,  "  Riches 
are  chiefly  good  because  they  give  us  time," 
and  who  sighed  for  a  little  son  that  he  might 
christen  him  Nothing-to-do,  and  permit  him 
to  do  nothing. 


WORDS. 

"  Do  you  read  the  dictionary  ?  "  asked  M. 
Theophile  Gautier  of  a  young  and  ardent  dis 
ciple  who  had  come  to  him  for  counsel.  "  It 
is  the  most  fruitful  and  interesting  of  books. 
Words  have  an  individual  and  a  relative  value. 
They  should  be  chosen  before  being  placed  in 
position.  This  word  is  a  mere  pebble ;  that  a 
fine  pearl  or  an  amethyst.  In  art  the  handi 
craft  is  everything,  and  the  absolute  distinc 
tion  of  the  artist  lies,  not  so  much  in  his 
capacity  to  feel  nature,  as  in  his  power  to 
render  it." 

We  are  always  pleased  to  have  a  wholesome 
truth  presented  to  us  with  such  genial  viva 
city,  so  that  we  may  feel  ourselves  less  edified 
than  diverted,  and  learn  our  lesson  without 
the  mortifying  consciousness  of  ignorance.  He 
is  a  wise  preceptor  who  conceals  from  us  his 
awful  rod  of  office,  and  grafts  his  knowledge 
dexterously  upon  our  self-esteem. 


114  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

"  Men  must  be  taught  as  if  you  taught  them  not, 
And  things  unknown  proposed  as  things  forgot." 

An  appreciation  of  words  is  so  rare  that  every, 
body  naturally  thinks  he  possesses  it,  and  this 
universal  sentiment  results  in  the  misuse  of 
a  material  whose  beauty  enriches  the  loving 
student  beyond  the  dreams  of  avarice.  Mu 
sicians  know  the  value  of  chords ;  painters 
know  the  value  of  colors  ;  writers  are  often  so 
blind  to  the  value  of  words  that  they  are  con 
tent  with  a  bare  expression  of  their  thoughts, 
disdaining  the  "  labor  of  the  file,"  and  confi 
dent  that  the  phrase  first  seized  is  for  them 
the  phrase  of  inspiration.  They  exaggerate 
the  importance  of  what  they  have  to  say,  — - 
lacking  which  we  should  be  none  the  poorer,  — 
and  underrate  the  importance  of  saying  it  in 
such  fashion  that  we  may  welcome  its  very 
moderate  significance.  It  is  in  the  habitual 
and  summary  recognition  of  the  laws  of  lan 
guage  that  scholarship  delights,  says  Mr. 
Pater ;  and  while  the  impatient  thinker,  eager 
only  to  impart  his  views,  regards  these  laws 
as  a  restriction,  the  true  artist  finds  in  them 
an  opportunity,  and  rejoices,  as  Goethe  re- 
jo*ced,  to  work  within  conditions  and  limits. 


WORDS.  115 

For  every  sentence  that  may  be  penned  or 
spoken  the  right  words  exist.  They  lie  con 
cealed  in  the  inexhaustible  wealth  of  a  vocab 
ulary  enriched  by  centuries  of  noble  thought 
and  delicate  manipulation.  He  who  does  not 
find  them  and  fit  them  into  place,  who  ac 
cepts  the  first  term  which  presents  itself  rather 
than  search  for  the  expression  which  accu 
rately  and  beautifully  embodies  his  meaning, 
aspires  to  mediocrity,  and  is  content  with  fail 
ure.  The  exquisite  adjustment  of  a  word  to 
its  significance,  which  was  the  instrument  of 
Flaubert's  daily  martyrdom  and  daily  triumph ; 
the  generous  sympathy  of  a  word  with  its 
surroundings,  which  was  the  secret  wrung  by 
Sir  Thomas  Browne  from  the  mysteries  of 
language, — these  are  the  twin  perfections 
which  constitute  style,  and  substantiate  genius. 
Cardinal  Newman  also  possesses  in  an  extraor 
dinary  degree  Flaubert's  art  of  fitting  his 
words  to  the  exact  thoughts  they  are  designed 
to  convey.  Such  a  brief  sentence  as  "  Ten 
thousand  difficulties  do  not  make  one  doubt  " 
reveals  with  pregnant  simplicity  the  mental 
attitude  of  the  writer.  Sir  Thomas  Browne, 
working  under  fewer  restraints,  and  without 


116  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

the  severity  of  intellectual  discipline,  harmo. 
nizes  each  musical  syllable  into  a  prose  of 
leisurely  sweetness  and  sonorous  strength. 
"  Court  not  felicity  too  far,  and  weary  not  the 
favorable  hand  of  fortune."  "  Man  is  a  noble 
animal,  splendid  in  ashes,  and  pompous  in  the 
grave."  "The  race  of  delight  is  short,  and 
pleasures  have  mutable  faces."  Such  sentences, 
woven  with  curious  skill  from  the  rich  fabric 
of  seventeenth  -  century  English,  defy  the 
wreckage  of  time.  In  them  a  gentle  dignity 
of  thought  finds  its  appropriate  expression, 
and  the  restfulness  of  an  unvexed  mind 
breathes  its  quiet  beauty  into  each  cadenced 
line.  Here  are  no  "  boisterous  metaphors," 
such  as  Dryden  scorned,  to  give  undue  em 
phasis  at  every  turn,  and  amaze  the  careless 
reader  with  the  cheap  delights  of  turbulence. 
Here  is  no  trace  of  that  "  full  habit  of 
speech,"  hateful  to  Mr.  Arnold's  soul,  and 
which,  in  the  years  to  come,  was  to  be  the  gift 
of  journalism  to  literature. 

The  felicitous  choice  of  words,  which  with 
most  writers  is  the  result  of  severe  study  and 
unswerving  vigilance,  seems  with  a  favored 
few  —  who  should  be  envied  and  not  imitated 


WORDS.  117 

—  to  be  the  genuine  fruit  of  inspiration,  as 
though  caprice  itself  could  not  lead  them  far 
astray.  Shelley's  letters  and  prose  papers 
teem  with  sentences  in  which  the  beautiful 
words  are  sufficient  satisfaction  in  themselves 
and  of  more  value  than  the  conclusions  they 
reveal.  They  have  a  haunting  sweetness,  a 
pure  perfection,  which  makes  the  act  of  read 
ing  them  a  sustained  and  dulcet  pleasure. 
Sometimes  this  effect  is  produced  by  a  few 
simple  terms  reiterated  into  lingering  music. 
"  We  are  born,  and  our  birth  is  unremembered, 
and  our  infancy  remembered  but  in  fragments ; 
we  live  on,  and  in  living  we  lose  the  apprehen 
sion  of  life."  Sometimes  a  clearer  note  is 
struck  with  the  sure  and  delicate  touch  which 
is  the  excellence  of  art.  "  For  the  mind  in 
creation  is  as  a  fading  coal,  which  some  invis 
ible  influence,  like  an  inconstant  wind,  awakens 
to  transitory  brightness."  The  substitution  of 
the  word  "  glow  "  for  "  brightness  "  would,  I 
think,  make  this  sentence  extremely  beautiful. 
If  it  lacks  the  fullness  and  melody  of  those 
incomparable  passages  in  which  Burke,  the 
great  master  of  words,  rivets  our  admiration 
forever,  it  has  the  same  peculiar  and  lasting 


118  ESSAYS   7iV  IDLENESS. 

hold  upon  our  imaginations  and  our  memo 
ries.  Once  read,  we  can  no  more  forget  its 
charm  than  we  can  forget  "  that  chastity  of 
honor  which  felt  a  stain  like  a  wound,"  or 
the  mournful  cadence  of  regret  over  virtues 
deemed  superfluous  in  an  age  of  strictly  icon 
oclastic  progress.  "  Never  more  shall  we  be 
hold  that  generous  loyalty  to  rank  and  sex, 
that  proud  submission,  that  dignified  obedi 
ence,  that  subordination  of  the  heart  which 
kept  alive,  even  in  servitude  itself,  the  spirit 
of  an  exalted  freedom."  It  is  the  fashion 
at  present  to  subtly  depreciate  Burke's  power 
by  some  patronizing  allusion  to  the  "grand 
style,"  —  a  phrase  which,  except  when  applied 
to  Milton,  appears  to  hold  in  solution  an  un 
defined  and  undefinable  reproach.  But  until 
we  can  produce  something  better,  or  some 
thing  as  good,  those  "  long  savorsome  Latin 
words,"  checked  and  vivified  by  "  racy  Saxon 
monosyllables,"  must  still  represent  an  excel 
lence  which  it  is  easier  to  belittle  than  to 
emulate. 

It  is  strange  that  our  chilling  disapproba 
tion  of  what  we  are  prone  to  call  "  fine  writ 
ing  "  melts  into  genial  applause  over  the 


WORDS.  119 

freakish  perversity  so  dear  to  modern  unrest. 
We  look  askance  upon  such  an  old-time  mas 
ter  of  his  craft  as  the  Opium-Eater,  and  re 
quire  to  be  told  by  a  clear-headed,  unenthusi- 
astic  critic  like  Mr.  George  Saintsbury  that 
the  balanced  harmony  of  De  Quincey's  style 
is  obtained  often  by  the  use  of  extremely 
simple  words,  couched  in  the  clearest  imagi 
nable  form.  Place  by  the  side  of  Mr.  Pater's 
picture  of  Monna  Lisa  —  too  well  known  to 
need  quotation  —  De  Quincey's  equally  famous 
description  of  Our  Lady  of  Darkness.  Both 
passages  are  as  beautiful  as  words  can  make 
them,  but  the  gift  of  simplicity  is  in  the 
hands  of  the  older  writer.  Or  take  the  single 
sentence  which  describes  for  us  the  mystery  of 
Our  Lady  of  Sighs :  "  And  her  eyes,  if  they 
were  ever  seen,  would  be  neither  sweet  nor 
subtle  ;  no  man  could  read  their  story ;  they 
would  be  found  filled  with  perishing  dreams, 
and  with  wrecks  of  forgotten  delirium." 
Here,  as  Mr.  Saintsbury  justly  points  out,  are 
no  needless  adjectives,  no  unusual  or  extrava 
gant  words.  The  sense  is  adequate  to  the 
sound,  and  the  sound  is  only  what  is  required 
as  accompaniment  to  the  sense.  We  are  not 


120  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

perplexed  and  startled,  as  when  Browning  in 
troduces  us  to 

"the  Tyrrhene  whelk's  pearl-sheeted  lip," 

or  to  a  woman's 

"morbid,  olive,  faultless  shoulder-blades." 

"We  are  not  irritated  and  confused,  as  when 
Carlyle  —  whose  misdeeds,  like  those  of 
Browning,  are  matters  of  pure  volition  —  is 
pleased,  for  our  sharper  discipline,  to  write 
"like  a  comet  inscribing  with  its  tail."  No 
man  uses  words  more  admirably,  or  abuses 
them  more  shamefully,  than  Carlyle.  That 
he  should  delight  in  seeing  his  pages  studded 
all  over  with  such  spikes  as  "  mammonism," 
"  flunkeyhood,"  "  nonentity,"  and  "  simula 
crum,"  that  he  should  repeat  them  again  and 
again  with  unwearying  self-content,  is  an 
enigma  that  defies  solution,  save  on  the  simple 
presumption  that  they  are  designed,  like  other 
instruments  of  torture,  to  test  the  fortitude  of 
the  sufferer.  It  is  best  to  scramble  over  them 
as  bravely  as  we  can,  and  forget  our  scars  in 
the  enjoyment  of  those  vivid  and  matchless 
pictures  in  which  each  word  plays  its  part, 
and  supplies  its  share  of  outline  and  emphasis 


WORDS.  121 

to  the  scene.  The  art  that  can  dictate  such 
a  brief  bit  of  description  as  "  little  red-colored 
pulpy  infants  "  is  the  art  of  a  Dutch  master 
who,  on  five  inches  of  canvas,  depicts  for  us 
with  subdued  vehemence  the  absolute  realities 
of  life. 

"  All  freaks,"  remarks  Mr.  Arnold,  "  tend 
to  impair  the  beauty  and  power  of  language  ;  " 
yet  so  prone  are  we  to  confuse  the  bizarre 
with  the  picturesque  that  at  present  a  great 
deal  of  English  literature  resembles  a  linguis 
tic  museum,  where  every  type  of  monstrosity 
is  cheerfully  exhibited  and  admired.  Writers 
of  splendid  capacity,  of  undeniable  originality 
and  force,  are  not  ashamed  to  add  their  curios 
to  the  group,  either  from  sheer  impatience  of 
restraint,  or,  as  I  sometimes  think,  from  a 
grim  and  perverted  sense  of  humor,  which  is 
enlivened  by  noting  how  far  they  can  venture 
beyond  bounds.  When  Mr.  George  Meredith 
is  pleased  to  tell  us  that  one  of  his  characters 
"  neighed  a  laugh,"  that  another  "  tolled  her 
naughty  head,"  that  a  third  "  stamped  ;  her 
aspect  spat,"  and  that  a  fourth  was  discovered 
"  pluming  a  smile  upon  his  succulent  mouth,''1 
we  cannot  smother  a  dawning  suspicion  that 


122  ESSAYS   IN  IDLENESS. 

he  is  diverting  himself  at  our  expense,  and 
pluming  a  smile  of  his  own,  more  sapless  than 
succulent,  over  the  nai've  simplicity  of  the 
public.  Perhaps  it  is  a  yearning  after  subtlety 
rather  than  a  spirit  of  uncurbed  humor  which 
prompts  Vernon  Lee  to  describe  for  us  Carlo's 
"  dark  Renaissance  face  perplexed  with  an  in 
cipient  laugh ;  "  but  really  a  very  interesting 
and  improving  little  paper  might  be  written 
on  the  extraordinary  laughs  and  smiles  which 
cheer  the  somewhat  saturnine  pages  of  modern 
analytic  fiction.  "  Correctness,  that  humble 
merit  of  prose,"  has  been  snubbed  into  a  re 
cognition  of  her  insignificance.  She  is  as 
tame  as  a  woman  with  only  one  head  and 
two  arms  amid  her  more  striking  and  richly 
endowed  sisters  in  the  museum. 

"  A  language  long  employed  by  a  delicate 
and  critical  society,"  says  Mr.  Walter  Bage- 
hot,  "  is  a  treasure  of  dexterous  felicities  ;  " 
and  to  awaken  the  literary  conscience  to  its 
forgotten  duty  of  guarding  this  treasure  is  the 
avowed  vocation  of  Mr.  Pater,  and  of  another 
stylist,  less  understood  and  less  appreciated, 
Mr.  Oscar  Wilde.  Their  labors  are  scantily 
rewarded  in  an  age  which  has  but  little  in- 


WORDS.  123 

stinct  for  form,  and  which  habitually  allows 
itself  the  utmost  license  of  phraseology.  That 
"  unblessed  freedom  from  restraint,"  which  to 
the  clear-eyed  Greeks  appeared  diametrically 
opposed  to  a  wise  and  well-ordered  liberty, 
and  which  finds  its  amplest  expression  in  the 
poems  of  Walt  Whitman,  has  dazzled  us  only 
to  betray.  The  emancipation  of  the  savage  is 
sufficiently  comprehensive,  but  his  privileges 
are  not  always  as  valuable  as  they  may  at  first 
sight  appear.  Mr.  Brownell,  in  his  admira 
ble  volume  "  French  Traits,"  unhesitatingly 
defines  Whitman's  slang  as  "  the  riotous 
medium  of  the  under-languaged  ;  "  and  the  re 
proach  is  not  too  harsh  nor  too  severe.  Even 
Mr.  G.  C.  Macaulay,  one  of  the  most  acute 
and  enthusiastic  of  his  English  critics,  admits 
sadly  that  it  is  "  gutter  slang,"  equally  pur 
poseless  and  indefensible.  That  a  man  who 
held  within  himself  the  elements  of  greatness 
should  have  deliberately  lessened  the  force  of 
his  life's  work  by  a  willful  misuse  of  his 
material  is  one  of  those  bitter  and  irremedi 
able  errors  which  sanity  forever  deplores. 
We  are  inevitably  repelled  by  the  employ 
ment  of  trivial  or  vulgar  words  in  serious 


124  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

poetry,  and  they  become  doubly  offensive 
when  brought  into  relation  with  the  beauty 
and  majesty  of  nature.  It  is  neither  pleasant 
nor  profitable  to  hear  the  sun's  rays  described 
as 

"  scooting  obliquely  high  and  low." 

It  is  still  less  satisfactory  to  have  the  universe 
addressed  in  this  convivial  and  burlesque  fash 
ion  :  — 

"  Earth,  you  seem  to  look  for  something  at  my  hands ; 
Say,  old  Topknot,  what  do  you  want  ?  ' ' 

There  is  a  kind  of  humorousness  which  a  true 
sense  of  humor  would  render  impossible; 
there  is  a  species  of  originality  from  which  the 
artist  shrinks  aghast ;  and  worse  than  mere 
vulgarity  is  the  constant  employment  of  words 
indecorous  in  themselves,  and  irreverent  in 
their  application,  —  the  smirching  of  clean 
and  noble  things  with  adjectives  grossly  un 
fitted  for  such  use,  and  repellent  to  all  the 
canons  of  good  taste.  This  is  not  the  "  gentle 
pressure  "  which  Sophocles  put  upon  common 
words  to  wring  from  them  a  fresh  significance ; 
it  is  a  deliberate  abuse  of  terms,  and  betrays 
a  lack  of  that  fine  quality  of  self-repression 
which  embraces  the  power  of  selection,  and  ib 


WORDS.  125 

the  best  characteristic  of  literary  morality. 
4  Oh,  for  the  style  of  honest  men ! "  sighs 
Sainte-Beuve,  sick  of  such  unreserved  dis 
closures  ;  "of  men  who  have  revered  every 
thing  worthy  of  respect,  whose  innate  feelings 
have  ever  been  governed  by  the  principles  of 
good  taste.  Oh,  for  the  polished,  pure,  and 
moderate  writers  !  " 

There  is  a  pitiless  French  maxim,  less  pop 
ular  with  English  and  Americans  than  with 
our  Gallic  neighbors,  —  "  Le  secret  d'ennuyer 
est  de  tout  dire."  Mr.  Pater  indeed  expresses 
the  same  thought  in  ampler  English  fashion 
(which  but  emphasizes  the  superiority  of  the 
French)  when  he  says, "  For  in  truth  all  art  does 
but  consist  in  the  removal  of  surplusage,  from 
the  last  finish  of  the  gem-engraver  blowing 
away  the  last  particle  of  invisible  dust,  back 
to  the  earliest  divination  of  the  finished  work 
to  be,  lying  somewhere,  according  to  Michel 
angelo's  fancy,  in  the  rough-hewn  block  of 
stone."  That  the  literary  artist  tests  his  skill 
by  a  masterly  omission  of  all  that  is  better 
left  unsaid  is  a  truth  widely  admitted  and 
scantily  utilized.  Authors  who  have  not 
taken  the  trouble  defaire  leur  toilette  admit 


126  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

us  with  painful  frankness  into  their  dressing- 
rooms,  and  suffer  us  to  gaze  more  intimately 
than  is  agreeable  to  us  upon  the  dubious 
mysteries  of  their  deshabille.  Authors  who 
have  the  gift  of  continuity  disregard  with 
insistent  generosity  the  limits  of  time  and 
patience.  What  a  noble  poem  was  lost  to 
myriads  of  readers  when  "  The  Ring  and  the 
Book "  reached  its  twenty  thousandth  line  ! 
How  inexorable  is  the  tyranny  of  a  great  and 
powerful  poet  who  will  spare  his  readers  no 
thing  !  Authors  who  are  indifferent  to  the 
beauties  of  reserve  charge  down  upon  us  with 
a  dreadful  impetuosity  from  which  there  is  no 
escape.  The  strength  that  lies  in  delicacy, 
the  chasteness  of  style  which  does  not  aban 
don  itself  to  every  impulse,  are  qualities  ill- 
understood  by  men  who  subordinate  taste  to 
fervor,  and  whose  words,  coarse,  rank,  or  unc 
tuous,  betray  the  undisciplined  intellect  that 
mistakes  passion  for  power.  "  The  language 
of  poets,"  says  Shelley,  "  has  always  effected  a 
certain  uniform  and  harmonious  recurrence  of 
sound,  without  which  it  were  not  poetry  ;  "  and 
it  is  the  sustained  effort  to  secure  this  bal 
anced  harmony,  this  magnificent  work  within 


WORDS.  127 

limits,  which  constitutes  the  achievement  of 
the  poet,  and  gives  beauty  and  dignity  to  his 
art.  u  Where  is  the  man  who  can  flatter  him 
self  that  he  knows  the  language  of  prose,  if  he 
has  not  assiduously  practiced  the  language  of 
poetry  ?  "  asks  M.  Francisque  Sarcey,  whose 
requirements  are  needlessly  exacting,  but 
whose  views  would  have  been  cordially  in 
dorsed  by  at  least  one  great  master  of  English. 
Dryden  always  maintained  that  the  admirable 
quality  of  his  prose  was  due  to  his  long  train 
ing  in  a  somewhat  mechanical  verse.  A  more 
modern  and  diverting  approximation  of  M. 
Sarcey's  views  may  be  found  in  the  robust 
statement  of  Benjamin  Franklin :  "  I  ap 
proved,  for  my  part,  the  amusing  one's  self 
now  and  then  with  poetry,  so  far  as  to  im 
prove  one's  language,  but  no  farther."  It  is 
a  pity  that  people  cannot  always  be  born  in 
the  right  generation  !  What  a  delicious  pic 
ture  is  presented  to  our  fancy  of  a  nineteenth- 
century  Franklin  amusing  himself  and  im 
proving  his  language  by  an  occasional  study 
of  "  Bordello  "  ! 

The  absolute  mastery  of  words,  which  is  the 
prerogative  of  genius,  can  never  be  acquired 


128  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

"by  painstaking,  or  revealed  to  criticism.  Mr. 
Lowell,  pondering  deeply  on  the  subject,  has 
devoted  whole  pages  to  a  scholarly  analysis  of 
the  causes  which  assisted  Shakespeare  to  his 
unapproached  and  unapproachable  vocabulary. 
The  English  language  was  then,  Mr.  Lowell 
reminds  us,  a  living  thing,  "  hot  from  the 
hearts  and  brains  of  a  people  ;  not  hardened 
yet,  but  moltenly  ductile  to  new  shapes  of 
sharp  and  clear  relief  in  the  moulds  of  new 
thought.  Shakespeare  found  words  ready  to 
his  use,  original  and  untarnished,  types  of 
thought  whose  edges  were  unworn  by  repeated 
impressions.  .  .  .  No  arbitrary  line  had  been 
drawn  between  high  words  and  low ;  vulgar 
then  meant  simply  what  was  common ;  poetry 
had  not  been  aliened  from  the  people  by  the 
establishment  of  an  Upper  House  of  vocables. 
The  conception  of  the  poet  had  no  time  to  cool 
while  he  was  debating  the  comparative  respec 
tability  of  this  phrase  or  that ;  but  he  snatched 
what  word  his  instinct  prompted,  and  saw  no 
indiscretion  in  making  a  king  speak  as  his 
country  nurse  might  have  taught  him." 

It  is  a  curious  thing,  however,  that  the  more 
we  try  to  account  for  the  miracles  of  genius, 


WORDS.  129 

the  more  miraculous  they  grow.  We  can 
never  hope  to  understand  the  secret  of  Ho 
mer's  style.  It  is  best  to  agree  simply  with 
Mr.  Pater  :  "  Homer  was  always  saying  things 
in  this  manner."  We  can  never  know  how 
Keats  came  to  write, 

"  With  beaded  bubbles  winking  at  the  brim," 

or  those  other  lines,  perhaps  the  most  beautiful 
in  our  language, 

"  Magic  casements,  opening  on  the  foam 
Of  perilous  seas,  in  faery  lands  forlorn." 

It  is  all  a  mystery,  hidden  from  the  un 
inspired,  and  Mr.  Lowell's  clean-built  scaf 
folding,  while  it  helps  us  to  a  comprehensive 
enjoyment  of  Shakespeare,  leaves  us  dumb 
and  amazed  as  ever  before  the  concentrated 
splendor  of  a  single  line,  — 

"  In  cradle  of  the  rude,  imperious  surge." 

There  is  only  one  way  to  fathom  its  concep 
tion.  The  great  waves  reared  their  foamy 
heads,  and  whispered  him  the  words. 

The  richness  of  Elizabethan  English,  the 
freedom  and  delight  with  which  men  sounded 
and  explored  the  charming  intricacies  of  a 
tongue  that  was  expanding  daily  into  fresh 


130  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

majesty  and  beauty,  must  have  given  to  litera 
ture  some  of  the  allurements  of  navigation. 
Mariners  sailed  away  upon  stormy  seas,  on 
strange,  half-hinted  errands ;  haunted  by  the 
shadow  of  glory,  dazzled  by  the  lustre  of 
wealth.  Scholars  ventured  far  upon  the  un 
known  ocean  of  letters ;  haunted  by  the  seduc 
tions  of  prose,  dazzled  by  the  fairness  of 
verse.  They  brought  back  curious  spoils, 
gaudy,  subtle,  sumptuous,  according  to  the 
taste  or  potency  of  the  discoverer.  Their 
words  have  often  a  mingled  weight  and  sweet 
ness,  whether  conveying  briefly  a  single 
thought,  like  Burton's  "  touched  with  the 
loadstone  of  love,"  or  adding  strength  and 
lustre  to  the  ample  delineations  of  Ben  Jon- 
son,  "  Give  me  that  wit  whom  praise  ex 
cites,  glory  puts  on,  or  disgrace  grieves ;  he 
is  to  be  nourished  with  ambition,  pricked  for 
ward  with  honors,  checked  with  reprehension, 
and  never  to  be  suspected  of  sloth."  Bacon's 
admirable  conciseness,  in  which  nothing  is 
disregarded,  but  where  every  word  carries  its 
proper  value  and  expresses  its  exact  signifi 
cance,  is  equaled  only  by  Cardinal  Newman. 
"Reading  maketh  a  full  man,  conference  a 


WORDS.  131 

ready  man,  and  study  an  exact  man,"  says 
Bacon ;  and  this  simple  accuracy  of  definition 
reminds  us  inevitably  of  the  lucid  terseness 
with  which  every  sentence  of  the  "  Apologia  " 
reveals  the  thought  it  holds.  "  The  truest 
expedience  is  to  answer  right  out  when  you 
are  asked ;  the  wisest  economy  is  to  have  no 
management ;  the  best  prudence  is  not  to  be  a 
coward."  As  for  the  naivete  and  the  pictur- 
esqueness  which  lend  such  inexpressible  charm 
to  the  earlier  writers  and  atone  for  so  many  of 
their  misdeeds,  what  can  be  more  agreeable 
than  "to  hear  Sir  Walter  Kaleigh  remark  with 
cheerful  ingenuousness,  "  Some  of  our  cap- 
taines  garoused  of  wine  till  they  were  reason 
able  pleasant  "  !  —  a  most  engaging  way  of 
narrating  a  not  altogether  uncommon  occur 
rence.  And  what  can  be  more  winning  to  the 
ear  than  the  simple  grace  with  which  Roger 
Ascham  writes  of  familiar  things :  "  In  the 
whole  year,  Springtime,  Summer,  Fall  of  the 
Leaf,  and  Winter ;  and  in  one  day,  Morning^ 
Noontime,  Afternoon,  and  Eventide,  altereth 
the  course  of  the  weather,  the  pith  of  the  bow, 
the  strength  of  the  man  "  !  It  seems  an  easy 
thing  to  say  "  fall  of  the  leaf  "  for  fall,  anc{ 


132  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

"  eventide "  for  evening,  but  in  such  easy 
things  lies  the  subtle  beauty  of  language ;  in 
the  rejection  of  such  nice  distinctions  lies  the 
barrenness  of  common  speech.  We  can  hardly 
spare  the  time,  in  these  hurried  days,  to 
speak  of  the  fall  of  the  leaf,  to  use  four  words 
where  one  would  suffice,  merely  because  the 
four  words  have  a  graceful  significance,  and 
the  one  word  has  none ;  and  so,  even  in  com 
position,  this  finely  colored  phrase,  with  its 
hint  of  russet,  wind-swept  woods,  is  lost  to  us 
forever.  Yet  compare  with  it  the  line  which 
Lord  Tennyson,  that  great  master  of  beauti 
ful  words,  puts  into  Marian's  song :  — 

" '  Have  you  still  any  honey,  my  dear  ?  * 
She  said,  '  It 's  the  fall  of  the  year  ; 
But  come,  come  ! '  " 

How  tame  and  gray  is  the  idiom  which  con 
veys  a  fact,  which  defines  a  season,  but  sug 
gests  nothing  to  our  imaginations,  by  the  side 
of  the  idiom  which  brings  swiftly  before  our 
eyes  the  brilliant  desolation  of  autumn ! 

The  narrow  vocabulary,  which  is  the  conver 
sational  freehold  of  people  whose  education 
should  have  provided  them  a  broader  field, 
admits  of  little  that  is  picturesque  or  forcible, 


WORDS.  133 

and  of  less  that  is  finely  graded  or  delicately 
conceived.  Ordinary  conversation  appears  to 
consist  mainly  of  "  ands,"  "  buts,"  and  "  thes," 
with  an  occasional  "  well  "  to  give  a  flavor  of 
nationality,  a  "  yes  "  or  "  no  "  to  stand  for 
individual  sentiment,  and  a  few  widely  exag 
gerated  terms  to  destroy  value  and  perspective. 
Is  this,  one  wonders,  the  "  treasure  of  dex 
terous  felicities  "  which  Mr.  Bagehot  contem 
plated  with  such  delight,  and  which  a  critical 
society  is  destined  to  preserve  flawless  and 
uncontaminated  ?  Is  this  the  "  heroic  utter 
ance,"  the  great  "  mother  tongue,"  possessing 
which  we  all  become  —  or  so  Mr.  Sydney 
Dobell  assures  us  — 

"  Lords  of  an  empire  wide  as  Shakespeare's  soul, 
Sublime  as  Milton's  immemorial  theme, 
And  rich  as  Chaucer's  speech  and  fair  as  Spenser's  dream  "  ? 

Is  this  the  element  whose  beauty  excites  Mr. 
Oscar  Wilde  to  such  rapturous  and  finely 
worded  praise,  —  praise  which  awakens  in  us 
a  noble  emulation  to  prove  what  we  can 
accomplish  with  a  medium  at  once  so  sump 
tuous  and  so  flexible  ?  "  For  the  material  that 
painter  or  sculptor  uses  is  meagre  in  compari 
son  with  language,"  says  Mr.  Wilde.  "  Words 


134  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

have  not  merely  music  as  sweet  as  that  of  viol 
and  lute,  color  as  rich  and  vivid  as  any  that 
makes  lovely  for  us  the  canvas  of  the  Venetian 
or  the  Spaniard,  and  plastic  form  no  less  sure 
and  certain  than  that  which  reveals  itself  in 
marble  or  in  bronze ;  but  thought  and  passion 
and  spirituality  are  theirs  also,  are  theirs 
indeed  alone.  If  the  Greeks  had  criticised 
nothing  but  language,  they  would  still  have 
been  the  great  art  critics  of  the  world.  To 
know  the  principles  of  the  highest  art  is  to 
know  the  principles  of  all  the  arts." 

This  is  not  claiming  too  much,  for  in  truth 
Mr.  Wilde  is  sufficiently  well  equipped  to 
illustrate  his  claim.  If  his  sentences  are 
sometimes  overloaded  with  ornament,  the 
decorations  are  gold,  not  tinsel ;  if  his  vocab 
ulary  is  gorgeous,  it  is  never  glaring ;  if  his 
allusions  are  fanciful,  they  are  controlled  and 
subdued  into  moderation.  Even  the  inev 
itable  and  swiftly  uttered  reproach  of  "  fine 
writing "  cannot  altogether  blind  us  to  the 
fact  that  his  are  beautiful  words,  —  pearls 
and  amethysts  M.  Gautier  would  call  them, 
—  aptly  chosen,  and  fitted  into  place  with 
the  careful  skill  of  a  goldsmith.  They  are 


WORDS.  135 

free,  moreover,  from  that  vice  of  unexpected 
ness  which  is  part  of  fine  writing,  and  which 
Mr.  Saintsbury  finds  so  prevalent  among  the 
literary  workers  of  to-day  ;  the  desire  to  sur 
prise  us  by  some  new  and  profoundly  ir 
relevant  application  of  a  familiar  word.  The 
"  veracity  "  of  a  bar  of  music,  the  finely  exe 
cuted  "  passage  "  of  a  marble  chimney-piece, 
the  "  andante  "  of  a  sonnet,  and  the  curious 
statement,  commonly  applied  to  Mr.  Glad 
stone,  that  he  is  "  part  of  the  conscience  of 
a  nation,"  —  these  are  the  vagaries  which  to 
Mr.  Saintsbury,  and  to  every  other  student 
of  words,  appear  so  manifestly  discouraging. 
Mr.  James  Payn  tells  a  pleasant  story  of  an 
aesthetic  sideboard  which  was  described  to 
him  as  having  a  Chippendale  feeling  about 
it,  before  which  touching  conceit  the  ever 
famous  "  fringes  of  the  north  star  "  pale  into 
insignificance.  A  recent  editor  of  Shelley's 
letters  and  essays  says  with  seeming  serious 
ness  in  his  preface  that  the  "  Witch  of  Atlas  " 
is  a  "characteristic  outcome,"  an  "exquisite 
mouse  of  fancy  brought  forth  by  what  moun 
tain  of  Shelley  an  imagination."  Now,  when 
a  careful  student  and  an  appreciative  reader 


136  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

can  bring  himself  to  speak  of  a  poem  as  a 
"mouse  of  fancy,"  merely  for  the  sake  of 
forcing  a  conceit,  and  confronting  us  with  the 
perils  of  the  unexpected,  it  is  time  we  turned 
soberly  back  to  first  prineiples  and  to  our  dic 
tionaries;  it  is  time  we  listened  anew  to  M. 
Gautier's  advice,  and  studied  the  value  of 
words. 


ENNUI. 

"  Tous  les  genres  sont  pennis,  hors  le  genre  emrayeux." 

"  WANT  and  ennui,"  says  Schopenhauer, 
"  are  the  two  poles  of  human  life."  The  fur 
ther  we  escape  from  one  evil,  the  nearer  we 
inevitably  draw  to  the  other.  As  soon  as  the 
first  rude  pressure  of  necessity  is  relieved,  and 
man  has  leisure  to  think  of  something  beyond 
his  unsatisfied  craving  for  food  and  shelter, 
then  ennui  steps  in  and  claims  him  for  her 
own.  It  is  the  price  he  pays,  not  merely  for 
luxury,  but  for  comfort.  Time,  the  inexorable 
taskmaster  of  poor  humanity,  drives  us  hard 
with  whip  and  spur  when  we  are  struggling 
under  the  heavy  burden  of  work ;  but  stays  his 
hand,  and  prolongs  the  creeping  hours,  when 
we  are  delivered  over  to  that  weariness  of 
spirit  which  weights  each  moment  with  lead. 
Time  is,  in  fact,  either  our  open  oppressor  or 
our  false  friend.  He  is  that  agent  by  which, 
at  every  instant,  "all  things  in  our  hands 


138  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

become  as  nothing,  and  lose   any  real  value 
they  possess." 

Here  is  a  doctrine  distinctly  discouraging, 
and  stated  with  that  relentless  candor  which 
compels  our  reluctant  consideration.  There 
can  be  no  doubt  that  to  Schopenhauer's  mind 
ennui  was  an  evil  every  whit  as  palpable  as 
want.  He  hated  and  feared  them  both  with 
the  painful  susceptibility  of  a  self-centred 
man ;  and  he  strove  resolutely  from  his  youth 
to  protect  himself  against  these  twin  disasters 
of  life.  The  determined  fashion  in  which  he 
guarded  his  patrimony  from  loss  resembled  the 
determined  fashion  in  which  he  strove  —  with 
less  success  —  to  guard  himself  from  boredom. 
The  vapid  talk,  the  little  wearisome  iterations, 
which  most  of  us  bear  resignedly  enough  be 
cause  custom  has  taught  us  patience,  were  to 
him  intolerable  afflictions.  He  retaliated  by 
an  ungracious  dismissal  of  society  as  some 
thing  pitiably  and  uniformly  contemptible. 
His  advice  has  not  the  grave  and  simple  wis 
dom  of  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  "  Be  able  to  be 
alone,"  but  is  founded  rather  on  Voltaire's  dis 
dainful  maxim,  "  The  world  is  full  of  people 
who  are  not  worth  speaking  to,"  and  implies 


ENNUL  139 

A,n  almost  savage  rejection  of  one's  fellow-be 
ings.  "  Every  fool  is  pathetically  social,"  says 
Schopenhauer,  and  the  advantage  of  solitude 
consists  less  in  the  possession  of  ourselves  than 
in  the  escape  from  others.  With  whimsical 
eagerness  he  built  barrier  after  barrier  be 
tween  himself  and  the  dreaded  enemy,  ennui, 
only  to  see  his  citadel  repeatedly  stormed,  and 
to  find  himself  at  the  mercy  of  his  foe.  There 
is  but  one  method,  after  all,  by  which  the  in 
vader  can  be  even  partially  disarmed,  and  this 
method  was  foreign  to  Schopenhauer's  nature. 
It  was  practiced  habitually  by  Sir  Walter 
Scott,  who,  in  addition  to  his  sustained  and 
splendid  work,  threw  himself  with  such  unself 
ish,  unswerving  ardor  into  the  interests  of 
his  brother  men  that  he  never  gave  them  a 
thorough  chance  to  bore  him.  They  did  their 
part  stoutly  enough,  and  were  doubtless  as 
tiresome  as  they  knew  how  to  be ;  but  his  in 
vincible  sweet  temper  triumphed  over  their 
malignity,  and  enabled  him  to  say,  in  the  even 
ing  of  his  life,  that  he  had  suffered  little  at 
their  hands,  and  had  seldom  found  any  one 
from  whom  he  could  not  extract  either  amuse 
ment  or  edification. 


140  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

Perhaps  his  journal  tells  a  different  tale,  a 
tale  of  heavy  moments  stretching  into  hours, 
and  borne  with  cheerful  patience  out  of  simple 
consideration  for  others.  Men  and  women, 
friends  and  strangers,  took  forcible  possession 
of  his  golden  leisure,  and  he  yielded  it  to  them 
without  a  murmur.  That  which  was  well-nigh 
maddening  to  Carlyle's  irritable  nerves  and 
selfish  petulance,  and  which  strained  even 
Charles  Lamb's  forbearance  to  the  snapping- 
point,  Sir  Walter  endured  smilingly,  as  if  it 
were  the  most  reasonable  thing  in  the  world. 
Mr.  Lang  is  right  when  he  says  Scott  did  not 
preach  socialism,  he  practiced  it;  that  is,  he 
never  permitted  himself  to  assign  to  his  own 
comfort  or  convenience  a  very  important  place 
in  existence ;  he  never  supposed  his  own  satis 
faction  to  be  the  predestined  purpose  of  the 
universe.  But  his  love  for  genial  life,  his 
keen  enjoyment  of  social  pleasures,  made  him 
singularly  sensitive  to  ennui.  He  was  able, 
indeed,  like  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  to  be  alone, 
—  when  the  charity  of  his  fellow-creatures 
suffered  it,  —  and  he  delighted  in  diverting 
companionship,  whether  of  peers  or  hinds ;  but 
the  weariness  of  daily  intercourse  with  stupid 


ENNUI.  141 

people  told  as  heavily  upon  him  as  upon  less 
patient  victims.  Little  notes  scattered  through 
out  his  journal  reveal  his  misery,  and  awaken 
sympathetic  echoes  in  every  long-tried  soul. 
"  Of  all  bores,"  he  writes,  "  the  greatest  is  to 
hear  a  dull  and  bashful  man  sing  a  facetious 
song."  And  again,  with  humorous  intensity : 
"  Miss  Ayton's  father  is  a  bore,  after  the  fash 
ion  of  all  fathers,  mothers,  aunts,  and  other 
chaperons  of  pretty  actresses."  And  again, 
this  time  in  a  hasty  scrawl  to  Ballantyne :  — 

"  Oh,  James  !  oh,  James  !  two  Irish  dames 

Oppress  me  very  sore  : 
I  groaning  send  one  sheet  I  've  penned, 
For,  hang  them  !  there 's  no  more." 

That  Sir  Walter  forgot  his  sufferings  as 
soon  as  they  were  over  is  proof,  not  of  callous 
ness,  but  of  magnanimity.  He  forgave  his  tor 
mentors  the  instant  they  ceased  to  torment 
him,  and  then  found  time  to  deplore  his  pre 
vious  irritation.  "  I  might  at  least  have  asked 
him  to  dinner,"  he  was  heard  murmuring  self- 
reproachfully,  when  an  unscrupulous  intruder 
had  at  last  departed  from  Abbotsf ord  ;  and 
on  another  occasion,  when  some  impatient  lads 
refused  to  emulate  his  forbearance,  he  recalled 


142  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

them  with  prompt  insistence  to  their  forgot 
ten  sense  of  propriety.  "  Come,  come,  young 
gentlemen,"  he  expostulated.  "  It  requires 
no  small  ability,  I  assure  you,  to  be  a  decided 
bore.  You  must  endeavor  to  show  a  little 
more  respect." 

The  self-inflicted  pangs  of  ennui  are  less 
salutary  and  infinitely  more  onerous  than  those 
we  suffer  at  the  hands  of  others.  It  is  natural 
that  our  just  resentment  when  people  weary  us 
should  result  in  a  temporary  taste  for  solitude, 
a  temporary  exaltation  of  our  own  society. 
Like  most  sentiments  erected  on  an  airy  tres 
tle-work  of  vanity,  this  is  an  agreeable  delusion 
while  it  lasts ;  but  it  seldom  does  last  after  we 
are  bold  enough  to  put  it  to  the  test.  The  in 
evitable  and  rational  discontent  which  lies  at 
the  bottom  of  our  hearts  is  not  a  thing  to  be 
banished  by  noise,  or  lulled  to  sleep  by  silence. 
We  are  not  sufficient  for  ourselves,  and  com 
panionship  is  not  sufficient  for  us.  "Venez, 
monsieur,"  said  Louis  XIII.  to  a  listless  court 
ier  ;  "  allons  nous  ennuyer  ensemble."  We 
fancy  it  is  the  detail  of  life,  its  small  griev 
ances,  its  apparent  monotony,  its  fretful  cares, 
its  hours  alternately  lagging  and  feverish,  that 


ENNUI.  143 

wear  out  the  joy  of  existence.  This  is  not  so. 
Were  each  clay  differently  filled,  the  result 
would  be  much  the  same.  Young  Maurice  de 
Guerin,  struggling  with  a  depression  he  too 
clearly  understands,  strikes  at  the  very  root  oi 
the  matter  in  one  dejected  sentence :  "  Mon 
Dieu,  que  je  souffre  de  la  vie !  Non  dans  ses 
accidents,  un  peu  de  philosophic  y  suffit ;  mais 
dans  elle-meme,  dans  sa  substance,  a  part  tout 
phenomene."  To  which  the  steadfast  optimist 
opposes  an  admirable  retort :  "  It  is  a  pity 
that  M.  de  Guerin  should  have  permitted  him 
self  this  relentless  analysis  of  a  misery  which 
is  never  bettered  by  contemplation."  Happi 
ness  may  not  be,  as  we  are  sometimes  told,  the 
legacy  of  the  barbarian,  but  neither  is  it  a  final 
outcome  of  civilization.  Men  can  weary,  and 
do  weary,  of  every  stage  that  represents  a  step 
in  the  world's  progress,  and  the  ennui  of  men 
tal  starvation  is  equaled  only  by  the  ennui  of 
mental  satiety. 

It  is  curious  how  much  of  this  temper  is 
reflected  in  the  somewhat  dispiriting  literature 
which  attains  popularity  to-day.  Mr.  Hamlii? 
Garland,  whose  leaden-hued  sketches  called  — • 
1  think  unfairly  —  "  Main-Travelled  lioads" 


144  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

have  deprived  most  of  us  of  some  cheerful 
hours,  paints  with  an  unfaltering  hand  a  life 
in  which  ennui  sits  enthroned.  It  is  not  the 
poverty  of  his  Western  farmers  that  oppresses 
us.  Real  biting  poverty,  which  withers  lesser 
evils  with  its  deadly  breath,  is  not  known  to 
these  people  at  all.  They  have  roofs,  fire, 
food,  and  clothing.  It  is  not  the  ceaseless 
labor,  the  rough  fare,  the  gray  skies,  the 
muddy  barnyards,  which  stand  for  the  trouble 
in  their  lives.  It  is  the  dreadful  weariness  of 
living.  It  is  the  burden  of  a  dull  existence, 
clogged  at  every  pore,  and  the  hopeless  mel 
ancholy  of  which  they  have  sufficient  intelli 
gence  to  understand.  Theirs  is  the  ennui  of 
emptiness,  and  the  implied  reproach  on  every 
page  is  that  a  portion,  and  only  a  portion, 
of  mankind  is  doomed  to  walk  along  these 
shaded  paths ;  while  happier  mortals  who 
abide  in  New  York,  or  perhaps  in  Paris,  spend 
their  days  in  a  pleasant  tumult  of  intellectual 
and  artistic  excitation.  The  clearest  denial  of 
this  fallacy  may  be  found  in  that  matchless 
and  desolate  sketch  of  Mr.  Pater's  called  "  Se 
bastian  van  Storck,"  where  we  have  painted  for 
us  with  penetrating  distinctness  man's  delib- 


ENNUI.  145 

erate  rejection  of  those  crowded  accessories 
which,  to  the  empty-handed,  represent  the  joys 
of  life.  Never  has  the  undying  essence  of 
enniii  been  revealed  to  our  unwilling-  gaze  as 
in  this  merciless  picture.  Never  has  it  been 
so  portrayed  in  its  awful  nakedness,  amid  a 
plenty  which  it  cannot  be  persuaded  to  share. 
We  see  the  rich,  warm,  highly  colored  sur 
roundings,  the  vehement  intensity  of  work  and 
pastime,  the  artistic  completeness  of  every 
detail,  the  solicitations  of  love,  the  delicate  and 
alluring  touches  which  give  to  every  day  its 
separate  delight,  its  individual  value ;  and, 
amid  all  these  things,  the  impatient  soul  striv 
ing  vainly  to  adjust  itself  to  a  life  which  seems 
so  worth  the  living.  Here,  indeed,  is  one  of 
"  Fortune's  favorites,"  whom  she  decks  with 
garlands  like  a  sacrificial  heifer,  and  at  whom, 
unseen,  she  points  her  mocking  linger.  En 
compassed  from  childhood  by  the  "  thriving 
genius  "  of  the  Dutch,  by  the  restless  activity 
which  made  dry  land  and  populous  towns 
where  nature  had  willed  the  sea,  and  by  the 
admirable  art  which  added  each  year  to  the 
heaped-up  treasures  of  Holland,  Sebastian 
van  Storck  has  but  one  vital  impulse  which 


146  ESSAYS   IN  IDLENESS. 

shapes  itself  to  an  end,  —  escape ;  escape  from 
an  existence  made  unendurable  by  its  stifling 
fullness,  its  vivid  and  marvelous  accomplish 
ment. 

It  is  an  interesting  question  to  determine, 
or  to  endeavor  to  determine,  how  far  animals 
share  man's  melancholy  capacity  for  ennui. 
Schopenhauer,  who,  like  Hartmann  and  all 
other  professional  pessimists,  steadfastly  main 
tains  that  beasts  are  happier  than  men,  is  dis 
posed  to  believe  that  in  their  natural  state 
they  never  suffer  from  this  malady,  and  that, 
even  when  domesticated,  only  the  most  intelli 
gent  give  any  indication  of  its  presence.  But 
how  does  Schopenhauer  know  that  which  he  so 
confidently  affirms  ?  The  bird,  impelled  by  an 
instinct  she  is  powerless  to  resist,  sits  patiently 
on  her  eggs  until  they  are  hatched ;  but  who 
can  say  she  is  not  weary  of  the  pastime  ?  What 
loneliness  and  discontent  may  find  expression 
in  the  lion's  dreadful  roar,  which  is  said  to  be 
as  mournful  as  it  is  terrible  !  We  are  nat 
urally  tempted,  in  moments  of  fretfulness  and 
dejection,  to  seek  relief  —  not  unmixed  with 
envy  —  in  contemplating  with  Sir  Thomas 
Browne  "  the  happiness  of  inferior  creatures 


ENNUI.  147 

who  in  tranquillity  possess  their  constitutions." 
But  freedom  from  care,  and  from  the  apprehen 
sion  that  is  worse  than  care,  does  not  neces 
sarily  imply  freedom  from  all  disagreeable 
sensations ;  and  the  surest  claim  of  the  brute 
to  satisfaction,  its  absolute  adequacy  to  the 
place  it  is  designed  to  fill,  is  destroyed  by  our 
interference  in  its  behalf.  As  a  result,  domes- 
tic  pets  reveal  plainly  to  every  close  observer 
how  frequently  they  suffer  from  ennui.  They 
pay,  in  smaller  coin,  the  same  price  that  man 
pays  for  comfortable  living.  Mr.  Ruskin  has 
written  with  ready  sympathy  of  the  house  dog, 
who  bears  resignedly  long  hours  of  dull  inac 
tion,  and  only  shows  by  his  frantic  delight 
what  a  relief  it  is  to  be  taken  out  for  the  mild 
dissipation  of  a  stroll.  I  have  myself  watched 
and  pitied  the  too  evident  ennui  of  my  cat, 
poor  little  beast  of  prey,  deprived  in  a  mouse- 
less  home  of  the  supreme  pleasures  of  the 
hunt ;  fed  until  dinner  ceases  to  be  a  coveted 
enjoyment ;  housed,  cushioned,  combed,  ca 
ressed,  and  forced  to  bear  upon  her  pretty 
shoulders  the  burden  of  a  wearisome  opulence, 
—  or  what  represents  opulence  to  a  pussy.  I 
have  seen  Agrippina  listlessly  moving  from 


148  ESSAYS   IN  IDLENESS. 

chair  to  chair,  and  from  sofa  to  sofa,  in  a  yain 
attempt  to  nap ;  looking  for  a  few  languid 
minutes  out  of  the  window  with  the  air  of  a 
great  lady  sadly  bored  at  the  play  ;  and  then 
turning  dejectedly  back  into  the  room  whose 
attractions  she  had  long  since  exhausted.  Her 
expressive  eyes  lifted  to  mine  betrayed  her  dis 
content  ;  the  lassitude  of  an  irksome  luxury 
unnerved  her  graceful  limbs  ;  if  she  could  have 
spoken,  it  would  have  been  to  complain  with 
Charles  Lamb  of  that  "  dumb,  soporifical  good- 
for-no thingness  "  which  clogs  the  wheels  of 
life. 

It  is  a  pleasant  fancy,  baseless  and  proof- 
less,  which  makes  us  imagine  the  existence  of 
fishes  to  be  peculiarly  tranquil  and  unmolested. 
The  element  in  which  they  live  appears  to 
shelter  them  from  so  many  evils  ;  noises  es 
pecially,  and  the  sharpness  of  sudden  change, 
scorching  heats,  and  the  inclement  skies  of 
winter.  A  delightful  mystery  wraps  them 
round,  and  the  smooth  apathy  with  which  they 
glide  through  the  water  suggests  content  ap 
proaching  to  complacency.  That  old-fashioned 
poem  beginning 

"  Deep  in  the  wave  is  a  coral  grove, 
Where  the  purple  mullet  and  goldfish  rove," 


ENNUI.  149 

filled  my  childish  heart  with  a  profound  envy 
of  these  happy  creatures,  which  was  greatly 
increased  by  reading  a  curious  story  of  Father 
Faber's,  called  "  The  Melancholy  Heart."  In 
this  tale,  a  little  shipwrecked  girl  is  carried  to 
the  depths  of  the  ocean,  and  sees  the  green  sea 
swinging  to  and  fro  because  it  is  so  full  of  joy, 
and  the  fishes  waving  their  glistening  fins  in 
silent  satisfaction,  and  the  oysters  opening  and 
shutting  their  shells  in  lazy  raptures  of  delight. 
Afterwards  she  visits  the  birds  and  beasts  and 
insects,  and  finds  amongst  them  intelligence, 
industry,  patience,  ingenuity,  —  a  whole  host 
of  admirable  qualities,  —  but  nowhere  else  the 
sweet  contentment  of  that  dumb  watery  life. 
So  universal  is  this  fallible  sentiment  that 
even  Leopardi,  while  assigning  to  all  created 
things  their  full  share  of  pain,  reluctantly  ad 
mits  that  the  passive  serenity  of  the  less  viva 
cious  creatures  of  the  sea  —  starfish  and  their 
numerous  brothers  and  sisters  —  is  the  nearest 
possible  approach  to  an  utterly  impossible 
happiness.  And  indeed  it  is  difficult  to  look 
at  a  sea-urchin  slowly  moving  its  countless 
spines  in  the  clear  shallow  water  without 
thinking  that  here,  at  least,  is  an  existence 


150  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

equally  free  from  excitability  and  from  ennui ; 
here  is  a  state  of  being  sufficient  for  itself, 
and  embracing  all  the  enjoyment  it  can  hold. 
The  other  side  of  the  story  is  presented  when 
we  discover  the  little  prickly  cup  lying  empty 
and  dry  on  the  peak  of  a  neighboring  rock, 
and  know  that  a  crow's  sharp  beak  has  relent 
lessly  dug  the  poor  urchin  from  its  comfortable 
cradle,  and  ended  its  slumbrous  felicity.  Yet 
the  sudden  cessation  of  life  has  nothing  what 
ever  to  do  with  its  reasonable  contentment. 
The  question  is,  not  how  soon  is  it  over,  or  how 
does  it  come  to  an  end,  but  is  it  worth  living 
while  it  lasts  ?  Moreover,  the  chances  of  death 
make  the  sweetness  of  self-preservation;  and 
this  is  precisely  the  sentiment  which  Leigh 
Hunt  has  so  admirably  embodied  in  those  lines 
—  the  finest,  I  think,  he  ever  wrote  —  where 
the  fish  pleads  for  its  own  pleasant  and  satis 
factory  existence :  — 

"  A  cold,  sweet,  silver  life,  wrapped  in  round  waves, 
Quickened  with  touches  of  transporting;  fear." 

Here,  as  elsewhere,  fear  is  the  best  antidote 
for  ennui.  The  early  settlers  of  America,  sur 
rounded  by  hostile  Indians,  and  doubtful  each 
morning  whether  the  coming  nightfall  would 


ENNUI.  151 

not  see  their  rude  homes  given  to  the  flames, 
probably  suffered  but  little  from  the  dullness 
which  seems  so  oppressive  to  the  peaceful  agri 
culturist  of  to-day.  The  mediaeval  women,  who 
were  content  to  pass  their  time  in  weaving 
endless  tapestries,  had  less  chance  to  complain 
of  the  monotony  of  life  than  their  artistic, 
scientific,  literary,  and  philanthropic  sisters  of 
our  age;  for  at  any  hour,  breaking  in  upon 
their  tranquil  labors,  might  be  heard  the 
trumpet's  blast ;  at  any  hour  might  come  the 
tidings,  good  or  bad,  which  meant  a  few  more 
years  of  security,  or  the  horrors  of  siege  and 
pillage. 

It  is  pleasant  to  turn  our  consideration  from 
the  ennui  which  is  inevitable,  and  consequently 
tragic,  to  the  ennui  which  is  accidental,  and 
consequently  diverting.  The  first  is  part  of 
ourselves,  from  which  there  is  no  escape ;  the 
second  is,  as  a  rule,  the  contribution  of  our 
neighbors,  and  may  be  eluded  if  fortune  and 
our  own  wits  favor  us.  Lord  Byron,  for  ex 
ample,  finding  himself  hard  beset  by  Madame 
de  Stael,  whom  he  abhorred,  had  the  dexterity 
to  entrap  poor  little  "  Monk  "  Lewis  into  the 
conversation,  and  then  slipped  away  from  both, 


152  ESSAYS   IN  IDLENESS. 

leaving  them  the  dismally  congenial  task  of 
wearying  each  other  without  mercy.  "Above," 
says  Bishop  Selwyn,  "  is  a  man  who  will  persist 
in  talking  about  himself  when  you  want  to  talk 
about  yourself  ;  "  and  this  simple  explanation 
offers  a  satisfactory  solution  of  much  of  the 
ennui  suffered  in  society.  People  with  theories 
of  life  are,  perhaps,  the  most  relentless  of  their 
kind,  for  no  time  or  place  is  sacred  from  their 
devastating  elucidations.  A  theoretic  social 
ist  —  not  the  practical  working  kind,  like  Sir 
Walter  —  is  adamant  to  the  fatigue  of  his  lis 
teners.  "  Eloquence,"  says  Mr.  Lowell  feel 
ingly,  "has  no  bowels  for  its  victims;"  and 
one  of  the  most  pathetic  figures  in  the  history 
of  literature  is  poor  Heine,  awakened  from  his 
sweet  morning  nap  by  Ludwig  Borne,  who  sat 
relentlessly  on  the  edge  of  the  bed  and  talked 
patriotism.  I  hardly  think  that  even  this  wan 
ton  injury  justified  Heine  in  his  cruel  attack 
upon  Borne,  when  the  latter  was  dead  and 
could  offer  no  defense ;  yet  who  knows  how 
many  drops  of  concentrated  bitterness  were 
stored  up  in  those  dreary  moments  of  bore 
dom  !  The  only  other  instance  of  ennui  which 
seems  as  grievous  and  as  cruel  is  the  picture 


ENNUI.  153 

of  the  Baron  Fouque's  brilliant  wife  con 
demned  to  play  loto  every  evening  with  the 
officers  of  the  victorious  French  army ;  an 
illustration  equally  novel  and  malign  of  the 
devastating  inhumanity  of  war. 

In  fact,  amusements  which  do  not  amuse  are 
among  the  most  depressing  of  earthly  evils. 
When  Sir  George  Cornwall  Lewis  candidly 
confessed  that  life  would  be  tolerable  were  it 
not  for  its  pleasures,  he  had  little  notion  that 
he  was  uttering  a  witticism  fated  to  enjoy 
a  melancholy  immortality.  His  protest  was 
purely  personal,  and  society,  prompt  to  recog 
nize  a  grievance  when  it  is  presented,  has  gone 
on  ever  since  peevishly  and  monotonously  echo 
ing  his  lament.  We  crave  diversion  so  eagerly, 
we  need  it  so  sorely,  that  our  disappointment 
in  its  clusiveiiess  is  fed  by  the  flickerings  of 
perpetual  hope.  Ennui  has  been  defined  as  a 
tlesire^  lor  activity  witnout  the  capacity  for  ac 
tion,  as  a  state  of  inertia  quickened  by  discon 
tent.  But  it  is  rather  a  desire  for  amusement 
than  for  activity ;  it  is  a  rational  instinct 
warped  by  the  irony  of  circumstances,  and  by 
our  own  selfish  limitations.  It  was  not  activ 
ity  that  Schopenhauer  lacked.  He  worked 


154  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

hard  all  his  life,  and  with  the  concentrated 
industry  of  a  man  who  knew  exactly  what 
he  wanted  to  do.  It  was  the  common  need  of 
enjoyment,  which  he  shared  with  the  rest  of 
mankind,  and  his  own  singular  incapacity  for 
enjoying  himself,  which  chafed  him  into  bitter 
ness,  and  made  him  so  unreasonably  angry  with 
the  world.  "  In  human  existence,"  says  Leo- 
pardi,  "  the  intervals  between  pleasure  and 
pain  are  occupied  by  ennui.  And  since  all 
pleasures  are  like  cobwebs,  exceedingly  fragile, 
thin,  and  transparent,  emiui  penetrates  their 
tissue  and  saturates  them,  just  as  air  pene 
trates  the  webs.  It  is,  indeed,  nothing  but  a 
yearning  for  happiness,  without  the.  illusion  of 
pleasure  or  the  reality  of  pain.  This  yearning 
is  never  satisfied,  since  true  happiness  does  not 
exist.  So  that  life  is  interwoven  with  weariness 
and  suffering,  and  one  of  these  evils  disap 
pears  only  to  give  place  to  the  other.  Such  is 
the  destiny  of  man." 

Now,  to  endure  pain  resolutely,  courage  is 
required ;  to  endure  ennui,  one  must  be  bred 
to  the  task.  The  restraints  of  a  purely  arti 
ficial  society  are  suffer  able  to  those  only  whom 
custom  has  rendered  docile,  and  who  have  been 


ENNUI.  165 

trained  to  subordinate  their  own  impulses  and 
desires.  The  more  elaborate  the  social  con 
ditions,  the  more  relentless  this  need  of  adjust 
ment,  which  makes  a  harmonious  whole  at 
the  cost  of  individual  development.  We  all 
know  how,  when  poor  Frances  Burney  was 
lifted  suddenly  from  the  cheerful  freedom  of 
middle-class  life  to  the  wearisome  etiquette  of 
a  court,  she  drooped  and  fretted  under  the  bur 
den  of  an  honor  which  brought  her  nothing 
but  vexation.  Macaulay,  who  champions  her 
cause  with  burning  zeal,  is  pleased  to  repre 
sent  the  monotony  of  court  as  simple  slavery 
with  no  extenuating  circumstances.  He  likens 
Dr.  Burney  conducting  his  daughter  to  the 
palace  to  a  Circassian  father  selling  his  own 
child  into  bondage.  The  sight  of  the  authoress 
of  "  Evelina  "  assisting  at  the  queen's  toilet,  or 
chatting  sleepily  with  the  ladies  in  waiting, 
thrills  him  with  indignation ;  the  thought  of 
her  playing  cards  night  after  night  with 
Madame  Schwellenberg  reduces  him  to  de 
spair.  And  indeed,  card-playing,  if  you  have 
not  the  grace  to  like  it,  is  the  most  unprofit 
able  form  of  social  martyrdom ;  you  suffer 
horribly  yourself,  and  you  add  very  little  to 


156  ESSAYS   IN  IDLENESS. 

the  pleasure  of  your  neighbor.  The  Baroness 
Fouque  may  have  conquered  the  infantine  im 
becilities  of  loto  with  no  great  mental  exhaus 
tion.  If  she  were  painfully  bored,  her  patience 
alone  was  taxed.  The  Frenchmen  probably 
thought  her  a  pleased  and  animated  com 
panion.  But  Miss  Burney,  delicate,  sleepy, 
fatigued,  loathing  cards,  and  inwardly  re 
bellious  at  her  fate,  must  have  made  the  game 
drag  sadly  before  bedtime.  It  was  a  dreary 
waste  of  moments  for  her ;  but  a  less  intoler 
ant  partisan  than  Macaulay  would  have  some 
sympathy  to  spare  for  poor  Madame  Schwel- 
lenberg,  who,  like  most  women  of  rank,  adored 
the  popular  pastime,  and  who  doubtless  found 
the  distinguished  young  novelist  a  very  unsat/ 
isfactory  associate. 

It  is  salutary  to  turn  from  Miss  Burney  and 
her  wrathful  historian  to  the  letters  of  Char 
lotte  Elizabeth,  mother  of  the  Regent  d'Or- 
leans,  and  see  how  the  oppressive  monotony  of 
the  French  court  was  cheerfully  endured  for 
fifty  years  by  a  woman  exiled  from  home  and 
kindred,  whose  pleasures  were  few,  whose  an 
noyances  were  manifold.  Madame  would  have 
enjoyed  nothing  better  than  a  bowl  of  beer, 


ENNUI.  157 

soup,  or  a  dish  of  sausages  eaten  in  congenial 
company.  She  lunched  daily  alone,  on  hated 
French  messes,  stared  at  by  twenty  footmen, 
from  whose  supercilious  eyes  she  was  glad  to 
escape  with  hunger  still  unsatisfied.  Madame 
detested  sermons.  She  listened  to  them  end 
lessly  without  complaint,  and  was  grateful  for 
the  occasional  privilege  of  a  nap.  Madame 
liked  cards.  She  was  not  permitted  to  play, 
nor  even  to  show  herself  at  the  lansquenet 
table.  She  never  gambled,  —  in  fact,  she  had 
no  money,  —  and  it  was  a  fancy  of  her  hus 
band's  that  she  brought  him  ill  luck  by  hover 
ing  near.  Neither  was  she  allowed  to  retire. 
"  All  the  old  women  who  do  not  play  have  to 
be  entertained  by  me,"  she  writes  with  sur 
passing  good  humor.  "  This  goes  on  from 
seven  to  ten,  and  makes  me  yawn  frightfully." 
Supper  was  eaten  at  the  royal  table,  where  the 
guests  often  waited  three  quarters  of  an  hour 
for  the  king  to  appear,  and  where  nobody 
spoke  a  word  during  the  meal.  "  I  live  as 
though  I  were  quite  alone  in  the  world,"  con 
fesses  this  friendless  exile  to  her  favorite 
correspondent,  the  Raugravine  Louise.  "  But 
I  am  resigned  to  such  a  state  of  things,  and 


158  ESSAYS   IN  IDLENESS. 

I  meddle  in  nothing."  Here  was  a  woman 
trained  to  the  endurance  of  ennui.  The  theatre 
and  the  chase  were  her  sole  amusements ;  let 
ter-writing  was  her  only  occupation.  Her 
healthy  German  nature  had  in  it  no  trace  of 
languor,  no  bitterness  born  of  useless  rebellion 
against  fate.  She  knew  how  to  accept  the  in 
evitable,  and  how  to  enjoy  the  accidental ;  and 
this  double  philosophy  afforded  her  something 
closely  resembling  content.  Napoleon,  it  is 
said,  once  desired  some  comedians  to  play 
at  court,  and  M.  de  Talleyrand  gravely  an 
nounced  to  the  audience  waiting  to  hear  them, 
"Gentlemen,  the  emperor  earnestly  requests 
you  to  be  amused."  Had  Charlotte  Elizabeth 
—  long  before  laid  to  sleep  in  St.  Denis  — 
been  one  of  that  patient  group,  she  would  have 
literally  obeyed  the  royal  commands.  She 
would  have  responded  with  prompt  docility  to 
any  offered  entertainment.  This  is  not  an  easy 
task.  u  Amuse  me,  if  you  can  find  out  how  to 
do  it,"  was  the  melancholy  direction  of  Riche 
lieu  to  Boisrobert,  when  the  pains  of  ennui 
grew  unbearable,  and  even  kittens  ceased  to 
be  diverting:.  Amuse  !  amuse !  amuse !  is  the 

O 

plea  of  a  weariness  as  wide  as  the  world,  and 


ENNUI.  159 

as  old  as  humanity.  Amuse  me  for  a  little 
while,  that  I  may  think  I  have  escaped  from 
myself. 

It  is  curious  that  England  should  have  to 
borrow  from  France  the  word  "  ennui,"  whik 
the  French  are  unanimous  in  their  opinion  that 
the  thing  itself  is  emphatically  of  English 
growth.  The  old  rhyme, 

"  Jean  Rosbif  e*cuyer, 
Qui  pendit  soi-merae  pour  se  d^sennuyer," 

has  never  lost  its  application,  though  the  pres 
ent  generation  of  English-speaking  men  are 
able  to  digest  a  great  deal  of  dullness  without 
seeking  such  violent  forms  of  relief.  In  fact, 
Mr.  Oscar  Wilde,  prompt  to  offer  an  unwel 
come  criticism,  explains  the  amazing  popu 
larity  of  the  psychological  and  religiously 
irreligious  novel  on  the  ground  that  the  genre 
ennuyeux,  which  no  Frenchman  can  bring 
himself  to  pardon,  is  the  one  form  of  litera 
ture  which  his  countrymen  thoroughly  enjoy. 
They  have  a  kindly  tolerance  for  stupid  people 
as  well,  and  the  ill-natured  term  "  bore  "  has 
only  forced  itself  of  late  years  upon  an  urbane 
and  long-suffering  public.  Johnson's  diction 
ary  is  innocent  of  the  word,  though  Johnson 


ICO  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

himself  was  well  acquainted  with  the  article. 
As  late  as  1822,  a  reviewer  in  "  Colburn's 
Magazine  "  entreats  his  readers  to  use  the  word 
"  bore  ;  "  to  write  it,  if  they  please  ;  to  print 
it,  even,  if  necessary.  Why  shrink  from 
the  expression,  when  the  creature  itself  is  so 
common,  and  "daily  gaming  ground  in  the 
country  "  ? 

Before  this  date,  however,  one  English 
writer  had  given  to  literature  some  priceless 
illustrations  of  the  species.  "  Could  we  but 
study  our  bores  as  Miss  Austen  must  have 
studied  hers  in  her  country  village,"  says 
Mrs.  Ritchie,  "  what  a  delightful  world  this 
might  be !  "  But  I  seriously  doubt  whether 
any  real  enjoyment  could  be  extracted  from 
Miss  Bates,  or  Mr.  Rushworth,  or  Sir  William 
Lucas,  in  the  flesh.  If  we  knew  them,  we 
should  probably  feel  precisely  as  did  Emma 
Woodhouse,  and  Maria  Bertram,  and  Elizabeth 
Bennet,  —  vastly  weary  of  their  company. 
In  fact,  only  their  brief  appearances  make 
the  two  gentlemen  bores  so  diverting,  even  in 
fiction ;  and  Miss  Bates,  I  must  confess,  taxes 
my  patience  sorely.  She  is  so  tiresome  that 
she  tires,  and  I  am  invariably  tempted  to  do 


ENNUI.  161 

what  her  less  fortunate  townspeople  would  have 
gladly  done,  —  run  away  from  her  to  more 
congenial  society.  Surely  comedy  ceases,  and 
tragedy  begins,  when  poor  Jane  Fairfax  es 
capes  from  the  strawberry  party  at  Donwell, 
and  seeks,  under  the  burning  noonday  sun, 
the  blessed  relief  of  solitude.  "  We  all  know 
at  times  what  it  is  to  be  wearied  in  spirits. 
Mine,  I  admit,  are  exhausted,"  is  the  confes 
sion  wrung  from  the  silent  lips  of  a  girl  who 
has  borne  all  that  human  nature  can  bear 
from  Miss  Bates's  affectionate  solicitude.  Per 
haps  the  best  word  ever  spoken  upon  the  cre 
ation  of  such  characters  in  novels  comes  from 
Cardinal  Newman.  "  It  is  very  difficult,"  he 
says,  "  to  delineate  a  bore  in  a  narrative,  for 
the  simple  reason  that  he  is  a  bore.  A  tale 
must  aim  at  condensation,  but  a  bore  acts  in 
solution.  It  is  only  in  the  long  run  that  he 
is  ascertained."  And  when  he  is  ascertained, 
and  his  identity  established  beyond  reach  of 
doubt,  what  profit  have  we  in  his  desolating 
perfections?  Miss  Austen  was  far  from  en 
joying  the  dull  people  whom  she  knew  in  life. 
We  have  the  testimony  of  her  letters  to  this 
effect.  Has  not  Mrs.  Stent,  otherwise  lost  to 


162  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

fame,  been  crowned  with  direful  immortality 
as  the  woman  who  bored  Jane  Austen  ?  "  We 
may  come  to  be  Mrs.  Stents  ourselves,"  she 
writes,  with  facile  self-reproach  at  her  impa 
tience,  "  unequal  to  anything,  and  unwelcome 
to  anybody ; "  an  apprehension  manifestly 
manufactured  out  of  nothingness  to  strengthen 
some  wavering  purpose  of  amendment.  Stu 
pidity  is  acknowledged  to  be  the  one  natural 
gift  which  cannot  be  cultivated,  and  Miss 
Austen  well  knew  it  lay  beyond  her  grasp. 
With  as  much  sincerity  could  Emma  Wood- 
house  have  said,  "  I  may  come  in  time  to  be  a 
second  Miss  Bates." 

There  is  a  small,  compact,  and  enviable  mi 
nority  among  us,  who,  through  no  merit  of 
their  own,  are  incapable  of  being  bored,  and 

'I  consequently  escape  the  endless  pangs  of  en- 

/  nui.    They  are  so  clearly  recognized  as  a  body 

that  a  great  deal  of  the  world's  work  is  pre- 

|  pared  especially  for  their  entertainment  and 

/  instruction.  Books  are  written  for  them,  ser 
mons  are  preached  to  them,  lectures  are  given 

\  to  them,  papers  are  read  to  them,  societies 
and  clubs  are  organized  for  them,  discussions 
after  the  order  of  Melchizedek  are  carried  on 


ENNUI.  163 

monotonously  in  their  behalf.  A  brand  new 
school  of  fiction  has  been  invented  for  their 
exclusive  diversion ;  and  several  complicated 
systems  of  religion  have  been  put  together  for 
their  recent  edification.  It  is  hardly  a  matter 
of  surprise  that,  fed  on  such  meats,  they 
should  wax  scornful,  and  deride  their  hungry 
fellow-creatures.  It  is  even  less  amazing  that 
these  fellow-creatures  should  weary  from  time 
to  time  of  the  crumbs  that  fall  from  their 
table.  It  is  told  of  Pliny  the  younger  that, 
being  invited  to  a  dinner,  he  consented  to  come 
on  the  express  condition  that  the  conversation 
should  abound  in  Socratic  discourses.  Here 
was  a  man  equally  insensible  to  ennui  and  to 
the  sufferings  of  others.  The  guests  at  that 
ill-starred  banquet  appear  to  have  been  sacri 
ficed  as  ruthlessly  as  the  fish  and  game  they 
ate.  They  had  not  even  the  loophole  of  escape 
which  Mr.  Bagehot  contemplates  so  admir 
ingly  in  Paradise  Lost.  Whenever  Adam's 
remarks  expand  too  obviously  into  a  sermon, 
Eve,  in  the  most  discreet  and  wife-like  manner, 
steps  softly  away,  and  refreshes  herself  witt 
slumber.  Indeed,  when  we  come  to  think  ox 
it,  conversation  between  these  two  must  have 


164  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

been  difficult  at  times,  because  they  had  no- 
body  to  talk  about.  If  we  exiled  our  neigh 
bors  permanently  from  our  discussions,  we 
should  soon  be  reduced  to  silence  ;  and  if  we 
confined  ourselves  even  to  laudatory  remarks, 
we  should  probably  say  but  little.  Miss  Fran 
ces  Power  Cobbe,  who  is  uncompromisingly 
hostile  to  the  feeble  vices  of  society,  insists 
that  it  is  the  duty  of  every  woman  to  look 
bored  when  she  hears  a  piece  of  scandal ;  but 
this  mandate  is  hardly  in  accord  with  Miss 
Cobbe's  other  requisite  for  true  womanhood, 
absolute  and  undeviating  sincerity.  How  can 
she  look  bored  when  she  does  not  feel  bored, 
unless  she  plays  the  hypocrite?  And  while 
many  women  are  shocked  and  repelled  by 
scandal,  few,  alas  !  are  wont  to  find  it  tire 
some.  I  have  not  even  observed  any  exceed 
ing  weariness  in  men  when  subjected  to  a 
similar  ordeal.  In  that  pitiless  dialogue  of 
Landor's  between  Catherine  of  Russia  and 
Princess  Dashkov,  we  find  some  opinions  on 
this  subject  stated  with  appalling  candor. 
"  Believe  me,"  says  the  empress,  "  there  is 
nothing  so  delightful  in  life  as  to  find  a  liar  in 
a  person  of  repute.  Have  you  never  heard 


ENNUI.  165 

good  folks  rejoicing  at  it  ?  Or  rather,  can  you 
mention  to  me  any  one  who  has  not  been  in 
raptures  when  he  could  communicate  such 
glad  tidings  ?  The  goutiest  man  would  go  on 
foot  to  tell  his  friend  of  it  at  midnight ;  and 
would  cross  the  Neva  for  the  purpose,  when 
he  doubted  whether  the  ice  would  bear  him." 
Here,  indeed,  is  the  very  soul  and  essence  of 
ennui ;  not  the  virtuous  sentiment  which  re 
volts  at  the  disclosure  of  another's  faults,  but 
that  deep  and  deadly  ennui  of  life  which  wel 
comes  evil  as  a  distraction.  The  same  selfish 
lassitude  which  made  the  gladiatorial  combats 
a  pleasant  sight  for  the  jaded  eyes  which  wit 
nessed  them  finds  relief  for  its  tediousness  to 
day  in  the  swift  destruction  of  confidence  and 
reputation. 

There  is  a  curious  and  melancholy  fable  of 
Leopardi's  in  which  he  seeks  to  explain  what 
always  puzzled  him  sorely,  the  continued  en 
durance  of  life.  In  the  beginning,  he  says, 
the  gods  gave  to  men  an  existence  without 
care,  and  an  earth  without  evil.  The  world 
was  small,  and  easily  traversed.  No  seas  di 
vided  it,  no  mountains  rose  frowning  from  its 
bosom,  no  extremes  of  heat  or  cold  afflicted 


166  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

its  inhabitants.  Their  wants  were  supplied, 
their  pleasures  provided  ;  their  happiness,  Jove 
thought,  assured.  For  a  time  all  things  went 
well  ;  but  as  the  human  race  outgrew  its 
infancy,  it  tired  of  this  smooth  perfection, 
and  little  by  little  there  dawned  upon  men  the 
inherent  worthlessness  of  life.  Every  day 
they  sounded  its  depths  more  clearly,  and 
every  day  they  wearied  afresh  of  all  they 
knew  and  were.  Illusions  vanished,  and  the 
insupportable  pains  of  ennui  forced  them  to 
cast  aside  a  gift  in  which  they  found  no  value. 
They  desired  death,  and  sought  it  at  their  own 
hands. 

Then  Jove,  half  in  wrath  and  half  in  pity, 
devised  a  means  by  which  his  rebellious  crea 
tures  might  be  preserved.  He  enlarged  the 
earth,  moulded  the  mountains,  and  poured  into 
mighty  hollows  the  restless  and  pitiless  seas. 
Burning  heat  and  icy  cold  he  sent,  diseases 
and  dangers  of  every  kind,  craving  desires 
that  could  never  be  satisfied,  vain  ambitions,  a 
babble  of  many  tongues,  and  the  deep-rooted 
animosities  of  nations.  Gone  was  the  old 
tranquillity,  vanished  the  old  ennui.  A  new 
race,  struggling  amid  terrible  hardships,  fought 


ENNUI.  167 

bravely  and  bitterly  for  the  preservation  of  an 
existence  they  had  formerly  despised.  Man 
found  his  life  filled  with  toil,  sweetened  by 
peril,  checked  by  manifold  disasters,  and  was 
deluded  into  cherishing  at  any  cost  that  which 
was  so  painful  to  sustain.  The  greater  the 
difficulties  and  dangers,  the  more  he  opposed 
to  them  his  own  indomitable  purpose,  the  more 
determined  he  was  to  live.  The  zest  of  per 
petual  effort,  the  keenness  of  contention,  the 
brief,  sweet  triumph  over  adversity,  —  these 
left  him  neither  the  time  nor  the  disposition 
to  question  the  value  of  all  that  he  wrung 
from  fate. 

It  is  a  cheerless  philosophy,  but  not  without 
value  to  the  sanguine  socialist  of  to-day,  who 
dreams  of  preparing  for  all  of  us  a  lifetime  of 
unbroken  ennui. 


WIT  AND  HUMOR. 

IT  is  dubious  wisdom  to  walk  in  the  foot 
prints  of  a  giant,  and  to  stumble  with  little 
steps  along  the  road  where  his  great  strides 
were  taken.  Yet  many  years  have  passed 
since  Hazlitt  trod  this  way ;  fresh  flowers  have 
grown  by  the  route,  and  fresh  weeds  have 
fought  with  them  for  mastery.  The  face  of 
.the  country  has  changed  for  better  or  for 
worse,  and  a  brief  survey  reveals  much  that 
never  met  his  eyes.  The  journey,  too,  was 
safer  in  his  day  than  in  ours;  and  while  he 
gathers  and  analyzes  every  species  of  wit  and 
humor,  it  plainly  does  not  occur  to  him  for  a 
moment  that  either  calls  for  any  protection  at 
his  hands.  Hazlitt  is  so  sure  that  laughter  is 
our  inalienable  right,  that  he  takes  no  pains 
to  soften  its  cadences  or  to  justify  its  mirth. 
"  We  laugh  at  that  in  others  which  is  a  serious 
matter  to  ourselves,"  he  says,  and  sees  no 
reason  why  this  should  not  be.  "  Some  one  is 


WIT  AND  HUMOR.  169 

generally  sure  to  be  the  sufferer  by  a  joke ;  " 
and,  fortified  with  this  assurance,  he  confesses 
to  a  frank  delight  in  the  comic  parts  of  the 
Arabian  Nights,  although  recognizing  keenly 
the  spirit  of  cruelty  that  underlies  them,  and 
aware  that  they  "  carry  the  principle  of  callous 
indifference  in  a  jest  as  far  as  it  can  go." 
Don  Quixote,  too,  he  stoutly  affirms  to  be  as 
fitting  a  subject  for  merriment  as  Sancho 
Panza.  Both  are  laughable,  and  both  are 
meant  to  be  laughed  at ;  the  extravagances  of 
each  being  pitted  dexterously  against  those  of 
the  other  by  a  great  artist  in  the  ridiculous. 
But  he  is  by  no  means  insensible  to  the  charm 
and  goodness  of  the  "  ingenious  gentleman ;  " 
for  sympathy  is  the  legitimate  attribute  of 
humor,  and  even  where  the  humorist  seems 
most  pitiless,  and  even  brutal,  in  his  apprehen 
sion  of  the  absurd,  he  has  a  living  tenderness 
for  our  poor  humanity  which  is  so  rich  in  its 
absurdities. 

Hazlitt's  definition  of  wit  and  humor  is  per 
haps  as  good  as  any  definition  is  ever  likely  to 
be;  that  is,  it  expresses  a  half-truth  with  a 
great  deal  of  reasonableness  and  accuracy. 
"Humor,"  he  says,  "is  the  describing  the 


170  ESSAYS   IN  IDLENESS. 

ludicrous  as  it  is  in  itself ;  wit  is  the  exposing 
it  by  comparing  or  contrasting  it  with  some 
thing  else.  Humor  is  the  growth  of  nature 
and  accident;  wit  is  the  product  of  art  and 
fancy.  Humor,  as  it  is  shown  in  books,  is  an 
imitation  of  the  natural  or  acquired  absurdities 
of  mankind,  or  of  the  ludicrous  in  accident, 
situation,  and  character;  wit  is  the  illustrating 
and  heightening  the  sense  of  that  absurdity  by 
some  sudden  and  unexpected  likeness  or  oppo 
sition  of  one  thing  to  another,  which  sets  off 
the  quality  we  laugh  at  or  despise  in  a  still 
more  contemptible  or  striking  point  of  view." 
This  is  perhaps  enough  to  show  us  a£  least 
one  cause  of  the  endless  triumph  of  humor  over 
wit,  —  a  triumph  due  to  its  closer  affinity  with 
the  simple  and  elementary  conditions  of  human 
nature  and  life.  Wit  is  artificial;  humor  is 
natural.  Wit  is  accidental ;  humor  is  inevi 
table.  Wit  is  born  of  conscious  effort ;  humor, 
of  the  allotted  ironies  of  fate.  Wit  can  be 
expressed  only  in  language ;  humor  can  be 
developed  sufficiently  in  situation.  Wit  is  the 
plaything  of  the  intellectual,  or  the  weapon  of 
nimble  minds ;  humor  is  the  possession  of  all 
sorts  and  conditions  of  men.  Wit  is  truly 


WIT  AND  HUMOR.  171 

what  Shelley  falsely  imagined  virtue  to  be, 
u  a  refinement  of  civilized  life  ; "  humor  is  the 
property  of  all  races  in  every  stage  of  develop 
ment.  Wit  possesses  a  species  of  immortality, 
and  for  many  generations  holds  its  own; 
humor  is  truly  immortal,  and  as  long  as  the 
eye  sees,  and  the  ear  hears,  and  the  heart 
beats,  it  will  be  our  privilege  to  laugh  at  the 
pleasant  absurdities  which  require  no  other 
seed  or  nurture  than  man's  endless  intercourse 
with  man. 

Nevertheless,  an  understanding  of  the  differ 
ences  in  nations  and  in  epochs  helps  us  to  the 
enjoyment  of  many  humorous  situations.  We 
should  know  something  of  England  and  of 
India  to  appreciate  the  peculiar  horror  with 
which  Lord  Minto,  on  reaching  Calcutta,  be 
held  the  fourteen  male  attendants  who  stood 
in  his  chamber,  respectfully  prepared  to  help 
him  into  bed ;  or  his  still  greater  dismay  at 
being  presented  by  the  rajah  of  Bali  with 
seven  slaves,  —  five  little  boys  and  two  little 
girls,  —  all  of  whom  cost  the  conscientious 
governor-general  a  deal  of  trouble  and  expense 
before  they  were  properly  disposed  of,  and  in  a 
fair  way  to  learn  their  alphabet  and  catechism. 


172  JESS  AYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

Yet  perhaps  a  deeper  knowledge  of  time  and 
character  is  needed  to  sound  the  depths  of  Sir 
Robert  Walpole's  cynical  observation,  "  Grati 
tude  is  a  lively  sense  of  future  favors ; "  al 
though  this  is  indeed  a  type  of  witticism  which 
possesses  inherent  vitality,  not  depending  upon 
any  play  of  words  or  double  meanings,  but 
striking  deep  root  into  the  fundamental  fail 
ings  of  the  human  heart. 

It  is  in  its  simplest  forms,  however,  that 
humor  enjoys  a  world-wide  actuality,  and  is 
the  connecting  link  of  all  times  and  places  and 
people.  "  Let  us  start  from  laughter,"  says  M. 
Edmond  Scherer,  "since  laughter  is  a  thing 
familiar  to  every  one.  It  is  excited  by  a  sense 
of  the  ridiculous,  and  the  ridiculous  arises 
from  the  contradiction  between  the  use  of  a 
thing  and  its  intention."  Even  that  common 
est  of  all  themes,  a  fellow-creature  slipping  or 
falling,  M.  Scherer  holds  to  be  provocative  of 
mirth ;  and  in  selecting  this  elementary  ex 
ample  he  bravely  drives  the  matter  back  to  its 
earliest  and  rudest  principles.  For  it  is  a 
weapon  in  the  hands  of  the  serious  that  such 
casualties,  which  should  excite  instant  sym 
pathy  and  alarm,  awaken  laughter  only  in 


WIT  AND  HUMOR.  173 

those  who  are  too  foolish  or  too  brutal  to  ex 
perience  any  other  sensation.  It  would  seem, 
indeed,  that  the  sight  of  a  man  falling  on  the 
ice  or  in  the  mud  cannot  be,  and  ought  not  to 
be,  very  amusing.  But  before  we  frown  se 
verely  and  forever  upon  such  vulgar  jests,  let 
us  turn  for  a  moment  to  a  well-known  essay, 
and  see  what  Charles  Lamb  has  to  plead  in 
their  extenuation :  — 

"I  am  by  nature  extremely  susceptible  of 
street  affronts ;  the  jeers  and  taunts  of  the 
populace;  the  low-bred  triumph  they  display 
over  the  casual  trip  or  splashed  stocking  of  a 
gentleman.  Yet  I  can  endure  the  jocularity 
of  a  young  sweep  with  something  more  than 
forgiveness.  In  the  last  winter  but  one,  pacing 
along  Cheapside  with  my  accustomed  precipi 
tation  when  I  walk  westward,  a  treacherous 
slide  brought  me  upon  my  back  in  an  instant. 
I  scrambled  up  with  pain  and  shame  enough, 
-r-  yet  outwardly  trying  to  face  it  down,  as  if 
nothing  had  happened,  —  when  the  roguish 
grin  of  one  of  these  young  wits  encountered 
me.  There  he  stood,  pointing  me  out  with  his 
dusky  finger  to  the  mob,  and  to  a  poor  woman 
(I  suppose  his  mother)  in  particular,  till  the 


174  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

tears  for  the  exquisiteness  of  the  fun  (so  he 
thought  it)  worked  themselves  out  at  the  cor 
ners  of  his  poor  red  eyes,  red  from  many  a  pre 
vious  weeping,  and  soot-inflamed,  yet  twinkling 
through  all  with  such  a  joy,  snatched  out  of 
desolation,  that  Hogarth  —  but  Hogarth  has 
got  him  already  (how  could  he  miss  him?)  in 
the  March  to  Finchlcy,  grinning  at  the  pieman ; 

—  there  he  stood,  as  he  stands  in  the  picture, 
irremovable,  as  if  the  jest  was  to  last  forever, 
with  such  a  maximum  of  glee  and  minimum 
of  mischief  in  his  mirth  —  for  the  grin  of  a 
genuine  sweep  hath  absolutely  no  malice  in  it 

—  that  I  could  have  been  content,  if  the  honor 
of  a  gentleman  might  endure  it,  to  have  re 
mained   his   butt  and   his  mockery  till  mid 
night." 

Ah,  prince  of  kindly  humorists,  to  whom 
shall  we  go  but  to  you  for  tears  and  laughter, 
and  pastime  and  sympathy,  and  jests  and 
gentle  tolerance,  and  all  things  needed  to  make 
light  our  trouble-burdened  hearts  ! 

It  is  not  worth  while  to  deny  or  even  to 
soften  the  cruel  side  of  humor,  though  it  is  a 
far  more  grievous  error  to  overlook  its  gener 
ous  forbearance.  The  humorist's  view  of  life 


WIT  AND  HUMOR.  175 

is  essentially  genial ;  but  he  has  given  stout 
blows  in  his  day,  and  the  sound  of  his  vigorous 
warfare  rings  harshly  in  our  unaccustomed 
ears.  "  The  old  giants  of  English  fun  "  were 
neither  soft-spoken  nor  soft-handed  gentry, 
and  it  seems  to  us  now  and  then  as  if  they 
laid  about  them  with  joyous  and  indiscriminate 
activity.  Even  Dickens,  the  last  and  greatest 
of  his  race,  and  haunted  often  to  his  fall  by 
the  beckoning  of  mirthless  modern  phantoms, 
shows  in  his  earlier  work  a  good  deal  of  this 
gleeful  and  unhesitating  belligerency.  The 
scenes  between  old  Weller  and  Mr.  Stiggins 
might  be  successfully  acted  in  a  spirited 
puppet-show,  where  conversation  is  of  less 
importance  than  well-timed  and  well-bestowed 
pommeling.  But  we  have  now  reached  that 
point  of  humane  seriousness  when  even  puppet- 
shows  cannot  escape  their  educational  respon 
sibilities,  and  when  Punch  and  Judy  are 
gravely  censured  for  teaching  a  lesson  in  bru 
tality.  The  laughter  of  generations,  which 
should  protect  and  hallow  the  little  manikins 
at  play,  counts  for  nothing  by  the  side  of  theii 
irresponsible  naughtiness,  and  their  cheerful 
disregard  of  all  our  moral  standards.  Yet 


176  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

here,  too,  Hazlitt  has  a  seasonable  word  of 
defense,  holding  indeed  that  he  who  invented 
such  diverting  pastimes  was  a  benefactor  to 
his  species,  and  gave  us  something  which  it 
was  rational  and  healthy  to  enjoy.  "  We  place 
the  mirth  and  glee  and  triumph  to  our  own 
account,"  he  says,  "and  we  know  that  the 
bangs  and  blows  the  actors  have  received  go 
for  nothing  as  soon  as  the  showman  puts  them 
up  in  his  box,  and  marches  off  quietly  with 
them,  as  jugglers  of  a  less  amusing  description 
sometimes  march  off  with  the  wrongs  and 
rights  of  mankind  in  their  pockets."  It  has 
been  well  said  that  wit  requires  a  good  head ; 
humor,  a  good  heart ;  and  fun,  high  spirits. 
Punch's  spirits,  let  us  hasten  to  admit,  are 
considerably  in  advance  of  his  head  and  heart ; 
yet  nevertheless  he  is  wanting  neither  in 
acuteness  nor  in  the  spirit  of  good-fellowship. 
He  has  hearkened  to  the  advice  given  by 
Seneca  many  years  ago,  "Jest  without  bit 
terness  " !  and  has  practiced  this  delightful 
accomplishment  for  centuries,  as  befits  the 
most  conservative  joker  in  the  world. 

Another    reproach    urged    against    humor 
rather  than  wit  is  its  somewhat  complicated 


WIT  AND  HUMOR.  177 

system  of  lying ;  and  much  well-merited  sever 
ity  has  been  expended  upon  such  questionable 
diversions  as  hoaxing,  quizzing,  "  selling,"  and 
other  variations  of  the  game,  the  titles  of 
which  have  long  since  passed  away,  leaving 
their  substance  behind  them.  It  would  be 
easy,  but  untrue,  to  say  that  real  humor  has 
nothing  whatever  to  do  with  these  unworthy 
offshoots,  and  never  encourages  their  growth. 
The  fact  remains  that  they  spring  from  a  great 
humorous  principle,  and  one  which  critics  have 
been  prompt  to  recognize,  and  to  embody  in 
language  as  clear  and  unmistakable  as  possible. 
"Lying,"  says  Hazlitt,  "is  a  species  of  wit 
and  humor.  To  lay  anything  to  a  person's 
charge  from  which  he  is  perfectly  free  shows 
spirit  and  invention ;  and  the  more  incredible 
the  effrontery  the  greater  is  the  joke."  "  The 
terrors  of  Sancho,"  observes  M.  Scherer,  "  the 
rascalities  of  Scapin,  the  brags  of  Falstaff, 
amuse  us  because  of  their  disproportion  with 
circumstances,  or  their  disagreement  with 
facts."  Just  as  Charles  Lamb  humanizes  a 
brutal  jest  by  turning  it  against  himself,  so 
Sir  Walter  Scott  gives  amusing  emphasis  to  a 
lie  by  directing  it  against  his  own  personality. 


178  £SSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

His  description  of  himself  in  his  journal  as  a 
"pebble-hearted  cur,"  the  occasion  being  his 
parting  with  the  emotional  Madame  Mirbel,  is 
truly  humorous,  because  of  its  remoteness  from 
the  truth.  There  are  plenty  of  men  who  could 
have  risked  using  the  phrase  without  exciting 
in  us  that  sudden  sense  of  incongruity  which 
is  a  legitimate  source  of  laughter.  A  delight 
ful  instance  of  effrontery,  which  shows  both 
spirit  and  invention,  is  the  story  told  by  Sir 
Francis  Doyle  of  the  highwayman  who,  having 
attacked  and  robbed  Lord  Derby  and  his 
friend  Mr.  Grenville,  said  to  them  with  re 
proachful  candor,  "  What  scoundrels  you  must 
be  to  fire  at  gentlemen  who  risk  their  lives 
upon  the  road !  "  As  for  the  wit  that  lies  in 
playful  misstatements  and  exaggerations,  we 
must  search  for  it  in  the  riotous  humor  of 
Lamb's  letters,  where  the  true  and  the  false 
are  often  so  inextricably  commingled  that  it  is 
a  hopeless  task  to,  separate  facts  from  fancies. 
"  I  shall  certainly  go  to  the  naughty  man  for 
fibbing,"  writes  Lamb,  with  soft  laughter ;  and 
the  devout  apprehension  may  have  been  justly 
shared  by  Edward  Fitzgerald,  when  he  de 
scribes  the  parish  church  at  Woodbridge  as 


WIT  AND  HUMOR.  179 

being  so  damp  that  the  fungi  grew  in  great 
numbers  about  the  communion  table. 

A  keen  sense  of  the  absurd  is  so  little  rel 
ished  by  those  who  have  it  not  that  it  is  too 
often  considered  solely  as  a  weapon  of  offense, 
and  not  as  a  shield  against  the  countless  ilk- 
that  come  to  man  through  lack  of  sanity  and 
judgment.  There  is  a  well-defined  impression 
in  the  world  that  the  satirist,  like  the  devil, 
roams  abroad,  seeking  whom  he  may  devour, 
and  generally  devouring  the  best ;  whereas  his 
position  is  often  that  of  the  besieged,  who 
defends  himself  with  the  sharpest  weapons  at 
his  command  against  a  host  of  invading  evils. 
There  are  many  things  in  life  so  radically  un 
wholesome  that  it  is  not  safe  to  approach  them 
save  with  laughter  as  a  disinfectant ;  and  when 
people  cannot  laugh,  the  moral  atmosphere 
grows  stagnant,  and  nothing  is  too  morbid,  too 
preposterous,  or  too  mischievous  to  meet  with 
sympathy  and  solemn  assurances  of  good  will. 
This  is  why  a  sense  of  the  ridiculous  has  been 
justly  called  the  guardian  of  our  minor  morals, 
rendering  men  in  some  measure  dependent 
upon  the  judgments  of  their  associates,  and 
laying  the  basis  of  that  decorum  and  propriety 


180  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

of  conduct  which  is  a  necessary  condition  of 
human  life,  and  upon  which  is  founded  the 
great  charm  of  intercourse  between  equals. 
From  what  pitfalls  of  vanity  and  self-assurance 
have  we  been  saved  by  this  ever-watchful  pres 
ence  !  Into  what  abysmal  follies  have  we 
fallen  when  she  withholds  her  restraining 
hand !  Shelley's  letters  are  perhaps  the 
strongest  argument  in  behalf  of  healthy  hu 
mor  that  literature  has  yet  offered  to  the 
world.  Only  a  man  burdened  with  an  "in 
vincible  repugnance  to  the  comic  "  could  have 
gravely  penned  a  sentence  like  this :  "  Cer 
tainly  a  saint  may  be  amiable,  —  she  may  be 
so ;  but  then  she  does  not  understand,  —  has 
neglected  to  investigate  the  religion  which  re 
tiring,  modest  prejudice  leads  her  to  profess." 
Only  a  man  afflicted  with  what  Mr.  Arnold 
mildly  calls  an  "inhuman"  lack  of  humor 
could  have  written  thus  to  a  female  friend: 
"  The  French  language  you  already  know ; 
and,  if  the  great  name  of  Rousseau  did  not 
redeem  it,  it  would  have  been  perhaps  as  well 
that  you  had  remained  ignorant  of  it."  Our 
natural  pleasure  at  this  verdict  may  be  agree 
ably  heightened  by  placing  alongside  of  it 


WIT  AND  HUMOR.  181 

Madame  de  StaeTs  moderate  statement,  "  Con 
versation,  like  talent,  exists  only  in  France." 
And  such  robust  expressions  of  opinion  give 
us  our  clearest  insight  into  at  least  one  of  the 
dangers  from  which  a  sense  of  the  ridiculous 
rescues  its  fortunate  possessor. 

When  all  has  been  said,  however,  we  must 
admit  that  edged  tools  are  dangerous  things  to 
handle,  and  not  infrequently  do  much  hurt. 
"  The  art  of  being  humorous  in  an  agreeable 
way  "  is  as  difficult  in  our  day  as  in  the  days 
of  Marcus  Aurelius,  and  a  disagreeable  exer 
cise  of  this  noble  gift  is  as  unwelcome  now  as 
then.  "  Levity  has  as  many  tricks  as  the  kit 
ten,"  says  Leigh  Hunt,  who  was  quite  capable 
of  illustrating  and  proving  the  truth  of  his  as 
sertion,  and  whose  scratching  at  times  closely 
resembled  the  less  playful  manifestations  of  a 
full-grown  cat.  Wit  is  the  salt  of  conversation, 
not  the  food,  and  few  things  in  the  world  are 
more  wearying  than  a  sarcastic  attitude  towards 
life.  "  Je  goute  ceux  qui  sont  raisonnables,  et 
me  divertis  des  extravagants,"  says  Uranie,  in 
"  La  Critique  de  FEcole  des  Femmes  ;  "  and 
even  these  words  seem  to  tolerant  ears  to  savor 
unduly  of  arrogance.  The  best  use  we  can  make 


182  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

of  humor  is,  not  to  divert  ourselves  with,  but 
to  defend  ourselves  against,  the  folly  of  fools  ; 
for  much  of  the  world's  misery  is  entailed  upon 
her  by  her  eminently  well-meaning  and  foolish 
children.  There  is  no  finer  proof  of  Miss 
Austen's  matured  genius  than  the  gradua] 
mellowing  of  her  humor,  from  the  deliberate 
pleasure  affected  by  Elizabeth  Bennet  and  her 
father  in  the  foibles  of  their  fellow-creatures  to 
the  amused  sympathy  betrayed  in  every  page 
of  "  Emma  "  and  "  Persuasion."  Not  even  the 
charm  and  brilliance  of  "  Pride  and  Prejudice  " 
can  altogether  reconcile  us  to  a  heroine  who, 
like  Uranie,  diverts  herself  with  the  failings  of 
mankind.  What  a  gap  between  Mr.  Bennet's 
cynical  praise  of  his  son-in-law,  Wickham,  — 
which,  under  the  circumstances,  is  a  little  re 
volting,  —  and  Mr.  Knightley's  manly  reproof 
to  Emma,  whose  youthful  gayety  beguiles  her 
into  an  unkind  jest.  While  we  talk  much  of 
Miss  Austen's  merciless  laughter,  let  us  remem 
ber  always  that  the  finest  and  bravest  defense 
of  harmless  folly  against  insolent  wit  is  embod 
ied  in  this  earnest  remonstrance  from  the  lips 
of  a  lover  who  is  courageous  enough  to  speak 
plain  truths,  with  no  suspicion  of  priggishness 
to  mar  their  wholesome  flavor. 


WIT  AND  HUMOR.  183 

It  is  difficult,  at  any  time,  to  deprive  wit 
of  its  social  or  political  surroundings  ;  it  is 
impossible  to  drive  it  back  to  those  deeper, 
simpler  sources  whence  humor  springs  un 
veiled.  "Hudibras,"  for  example,  is  witty; 
"  Don  Quixote "  is  humorous.  Sheridan  is 
witty  ;  Goldsmith  is  humorous.  To  turn  from 
the  sparkling  scenes  where  the  Rivals  play  their 
mimic  parts  to  the  quiet  fireside  where  the 
Vicar  and  Farmer  Flamborough  sit  sipping 
their  gooseberry  wine  is  to  reenter  life,  and  to 
feel  human  hearts  beating  against  our  own. 
How  delicate  the  touch  which  puts  everything 
before  us  with  a  certain  gentle,  loving  malice, 
winning  us  to  laughter,  without  for  a  moment 
alienating  our  sympathies  from  the  right. 
Hazlitt  claims  for  the  wicked  and  witty  come 
dies  of  the  Restoration  that  it  is  their  privilege 
to  allay  our  scruples  and  banish  our  just  re 
grets  ;  but  when  Goldsmith  brings  the  profli 
gate  squire  and  his  female  associates  into  the 
Vicar's  innocent  household,  the  scene  is  one 
of  pure  and  incomparable  humor,  which  never 
theless  leaves  us  more  than  ever  in  love  with 
the  simple  goodness  which  is  so  readily  de 
ceived.  Mr.  Thornhill  utters  a  questionable 


184  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

sentiment.  The  two  fine  ladies,  who  have  been 
striving  hard  to  play  their  parts,  and  only  let 
ting  slip  occasional  oaths,  affect  great  displea 
sure  at  his  laxness,  and  at  once  begin  a  very  dis 
creet  and  serious  dialogue  upon  virtue.  "  In  this 
my  wife,  the  chaplain,  and  I  soon  joined  ;  and 
the  squire  himself  was  at  last  brought  to  con 
fess  a  sense  of  sorrow  for  his  former  excesses. 
We  talked  of  the  pleasures  of  temperance,  and 
of  the  sunshine  of  the  mind  unpolluted  with 
guilt.  I  was  so  well  pleased  that  my  little 
ones  were  kept  up  beyond  the  usual  time,  to 
be  edified  by  so  much  good  conversation.  Mr. 
Thornhill  even  went  beyond  me,  and  demanded 
if  I  had  any  objection  to  giving  prayers.  I 
joyfully  embraced  the  proposal ;  and  in  this 
manner  the  night  was  passed  in  a  most  com 
fortable  way,  till  at  length  the  company  began 
to  think  of  returning."  What  a  picture  it  is ! 
What  an  admirably  humorous  situation  ! 
What  easy  tolerance  in  the  treatment !  We 
laugh,  but  even  in  our  laughter  we  know  that 
not  for  the  space  of  a  passing  breath  does 
Goldsmith  yield  his  own  sympathy,  or  divert 
ours,  away  from  the  just  cause  of  innocence 
and  truth. 


WIT  AND   HUM  OK.  185 

If  men  of  real  wit  have  been  more  numer 
ous  in  the  world  than  men  of  real  humor,  it  is 
because  discernment  and  lenity,  mirth  and 
conciliation,  are  qualities  which  do  not  blend 
easily  with  the  natural  asperity  of  our  race. 
Humor  has  been  somewhat  daringly  defined  as 
"  a  sympathy  for  the  seamy  side  of  things." 
It  does  not  hover  on  the  borders  of  the  light 
and  trifling ;  it  does  not  linger  in  that  keen 
and  courtly  atmosphere  which  is  the  chosen 
playground  of  wit ;  but  diffusing  itself  subtly 
throughout  all  nature,  reveals  to  us  life,  —  life 
which  we  love  to  consider  and  to  judge  from 
some  pet  standpoint  of  our  own,  but  which  is  so 
big  and  wonderful,  and  good  and  bad,  and  fine 
and  terrible,  that  our  little  peaks  of  observa 
tion  command  only  a  glimpse  of  the  mysteries 
we  are  so  ready  and  willing  to  solve.  Thus,  the 
degree  of  wit  embodied  in  an  old  story  is  a  mat 
ter  of  much  dispute  and  of  scant  importance  ; 
but  when  we  read  that  Queen  Elizabeth,  in  her 
last  illness,  turned  wearily  away  from  matters 
of  state,  uyet  delighted  to  hear  some  of  the 
4  Hundred  Merry  Tales,'  and  to  such  was  very 
attentive,"  we  feel  we  have  been  lifted  into 
the  regions  of  humor,  and  by  its  sudden  light 


186  £88 AYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

we  recognize,  not  the  dubious  merriment  of  the 
tales,  but  the  sick  and  world-worn  spirit  seek 
ing  a  transient  relief  from  fretful  care  and 
poisonous  recollections.  So,  too,  when  Sheri 
dan  said  of  Mr.  Dundas  that  he  resorted  to 
his  memory  for  his  jests,  and  to  his  imagina 
tion  for  his  facts,  the  great  wit,  after  the 
fashion  of  wits,  expressed  a  limited  truth.  It 
was  a  delightful  statement  so  far  as  it  went, 
but  it  went  no  further  than  Mr.  Dundas,  with 
just  the  possibility  of  a  second  application. 
When  Voltaire  sighed,  "  Nothing  is  so  disa 
greeable  as  to  be  obscurely  hanged,"  he  gave 
utterance  to  a  national  sentiment,  which  is  not 
in  the  least  witty,  but  profoundly  humorous, 
revealing  with  charming  distinctness  a  French 
man's  innate  aversion  to  all  dull  and  common 
place  surroundings.  Dying  is  not  with  him, 
as  with  an  Englishman,  a  strictly  "  private  af 
fair  ;  "  it  is  the  last  act  of  life's  brilliant  play, 
which  is  expected  to  throw  no  discredit  upon 
the  sparkling  scenes  it  closes. 

The  breadth  of  atmosphere  which  humor 
requires  for  its  development,  the  saneness  and 
sympathy  of  its  revelations,  are  admirably 
described  by  one  of  the  most  penetrating 


WIT  AND  HUMOR.  157 

least  humorous  of  French  critics,  M.  Edinond 
Scherer,  whose  words  are  all  the  more  grateful 
and  valuable  to  us  when  they  refer,  not  to  his 
own  countrymen,  but  to  those  robust  English 
humorists  whom  it  is  our  present  pleasure  to 
ignore.  M.  Scherer,  it  is  true,  finds  much 
fault,  and  reasonable  fault  ever,  with  these 
stout-hearted,  strong-handed  veterans.  They 
are  not  always  decorous.  They  are  not  always 
sincere.  They  are  wont  to  play  with  their 
subjects.  They  are  too  eager  to  amuse  them 
selves  and  other  people.  It  is  easy  to  make 
out  a  list  of  their  derelictions.  "  Yet  this  does 
not  prevent  the  temperament  of  the  humorist 
from  being,  on  the  whole,  the  happiest  that  a 
man  can  bring  with  him  into  this  world,  nor 
his  point  of  view  from  being  the  fairest  from 
which  the  world  can  be  judged.  The  satirist 
grows  wroth ;  the  cynic  banters  ;  the  humorist 
laughs  and  sympathizes  by  turns.  .  .  .  lie  has 
neither  the  fault  of  the  pessimist,  who  refers 
everything  to  a  purely  personal  conception, 
and  is  angry  with  reality  for  not  being  such 
as  he  conceives  it ;  nor  that  of  the  optimist, 
who  shuts  his  eyes  to  everything  missing  on 
the  real  earth,  that  he  may  comply  with  the 


188  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

demands  of  his  heart  and  of  his  reason.  The 
humorist  feels  the  imperfections  of  reality, 
and  resigns  himself  to  them  with  good  temper, 
knowing  that  his  own  satisfaction  is  not  the 
rule  of  things,  and  that  the  formula  of  the 
universe  is  necessarily  larger  than  the  prefer 
ences  of  a  single  one  of  the  accidental  beings 
of  whom  the  universe  is  composed.  He  is  be 
yond  doubt  the  true  philosopher." 

This  is  a  broad  statement ;  yet  to  endure 
life  smilingly  is  no  ignoble  task ;  and  if  the 
humors  of  mankind  are  inseparably  blended 
with  all  their  impulses  and  actions,  it  is  worth 
while  to  consider  bravely  the  value  of  quali 
ties  so  subtle  and  far-reaching  in  their  influ 
ences.  Steele,  as  we  know,  dressed  the  invad 
ing  bailiffs  in  liveries,  and  amazed  his  guests 
by  the  number  and  elegance  of  his  retainers. 
Sydney  Smith  fastened  antlers  on  his  sheep, 
for  the  gratification  of  a  lady  who  thought  he 
ought  to  have  deer  in  his  park.  Such  elabo 
rate  jests,  born  of  invincible  gayety  and  high 
spirits,  seem  childish  to  our  present  adult 
seriousness  ;  and  we  are  too  impatient  to  un 
derstand  that  they  represent  an  attitude,  and 
a  very  healthy  attitude,  towards  life.  The 


WIT  AND  HUMOR.  189 

iniquity  of  Steele's  career  lay  in  his  repeatedly 
running  into  debt,  not  in  the  admirable  temper 
with  which  he  met  the  consequences  of  that 
debt  when  they  were  forced  upon  him ;  and 
if  the  censorious  are  disposed  to  believe  that 
a  less  happy  disposition  would  have  avoided 
these  consequences,  let  them  consider  the  ca 
reers  of  poor  Richard  Savage  and  other  mis 
anthropic  prodigals.  As  for  Sydney  Smith, 
he  followed  Burton's  excellent  counsel,  "  Go 
on  then  merrily  to  heaven  ;  "  and  his  path  was 
none  the  less  straight  because  it  was  smoothed 
by  laughter.  That  which  must  be  borne  had 
best  be  borne  cheerfully,  and  sometimes  a 
single  telling  stroke  of  wit,  a  single  word  rich 
in  manly  humor,  reveals  to  us  that  true  cour 
age,  that  fine  philosophy,  which  endures  and 
even  tolerates  the  vicissitudes  of  fortune, 
without  for  a  moment  relinquishing  its  honest 
hold  upon  the  right.  Mr.  Lang  has  told  us 
such  a  little  story  of  the  verger  in  a  Saxon 
town  who  was  wont  to  show  visitors  a  silver 
mouse,  which  had  been  offered  by  the  women 
to  the  Blessed  Virgin  that  she  might  rid  the 
town  of  mice.  A  Prussian  officer,  with  that 
prompt  brutality  which  loves  to  offend  religious 


190  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

sentiment  it  does  not  share,  asked  jeeringly, 
"  Are  you  such  fools  as  to  believe  that  the 
creatures  went  away  because  a  silver  mouse 
was  dedicated  ?  "  "  Ah,  no,"  replied  the  ver 
ger,  "or  long  ago  we  should  have  offered  a 
silver  Prussian." 

It  is  the  often-expressed  opinion  of  Leigh 
Hunt  that  although  wit  and  humor  may  be 
found  in  perfection  apart  from  each  other,  yet 
their  best  work  is  shared  in  common.  Wit 
separated  from  humor  is  but  an  element  of 
sport ;  "  a  laughing  jade,"  with  petulant 
whims  and  fancies,  which  runs  away  with  our 
discretion,  confuses  our  wisdom,  and  mocks  at 
holy  charity ;  yet  adds  greatly,  withal,  to  the 
buoyancy  and  popularity  of  life.  It  makes 
gentlefolk  laugh,  —  a  difficult  task,  says  Mo- 
liere ;  it  scatters  our  faculties,  and  "  bears 
them  off  deridingly  into  pastime."  It  is  a 
fire-gleam  in  our  dull  world,  a  gift  of  the  gods, 
who  love  to  provide  weapons  for  the  amuse 
ment  and  discomfiture  of  mankind.  But  hu 
mor  stands  on  common  soil,  and  breathes  our 
common  air.  The  kindly  contagion  of  its 
mirth  lifts  our  hearts  from  their  personal  ap 
prehension  of  life's  grievances,  and  links  UG 


WIT  AND  HUMOR.  191 

together  in  a  bond  of  mutual  tears  and  laugh 
ter.  If  it  be  powerless  to  mould  existence,  or 
even  explain  it  to  our  satisfaction,  it  can  give 
us  at  least  some  basis  for  philosophy,  some 
scope  for  sympathy,  and  sanity,  and  endurance. 
"  The  perceptions  of  the  contrasts  of  human 
destiny,"  says  M.  Scherer,  "  by  a  man  who 
does  not  sever  himself  from  humanity,  but 
who  takes  his  own  shortcomings  and  those  of 
his  dear  fellow-creatures  cheerfully,  —  this  is 
the  essence  of  humor." 


LETTERS. 

IT  is  one  of  the  current  complaints  of  to-day 
that  the  art  of  letter-writing,  as  our  great 
grandfathers  and  our  great-great-grandfathers 
knew  it,  has  been  utterly  and  irrevocably  lost. 
Railways,  which  bring  together  easily  and  often 
people  who  used  to  spend  the  greater  portion 
of  their  lives  apart ;  cheap  postage,  which  re 
lieves  a  man  from  any  serious  responsibility  for 
what  he  writes,  —  the  most  insignificant  scrawl 
seems  worth  the  stamp  he  puts  on  it ;  the  hur 
ried,  restless  pace  at  which  we  live,  each  day 
filled  to  the  brim  with  things  which  are  hardly 
so  important  as  we  think  them,  and  which 
have  cost  us  the  old  rich  hours  of  leisurely 
thought  and  inaction,  —  these  are  the  forces 
which  have  conspired  to  destroy  the  letter,  and 
to  crowd  into  its  place  that  usurping  and  un 
profitable  little  upstart  called  the  note.  "  The 
art  of  note-writing,"  says  Mr.  Bagehot,  "  may 
become  classical ;  it  is  for  the  present  age  to 


LETTERS.  193 

provide  models  for  that  sort  of  composition ; 
but  letters  have  perished.  In  the  last  century, 
cultivated  people  who  sat  down  to  write  took 
pains  to  have  something  to  say,  and  took  pains 
to  say  it.  The  correspondence  of  to-day  is 
like  a  series  of  telegrams  with  amplified  head 
ings.  There  is  not  more  than  one  idea,  and 
that  idea  soon  comes  and  is  soon  over.  The 
best  correspondence  of  the  past  is  rather  like 
a  good  light  article,  in  which  the  points  are 
studiously  made ;  in  which  the  effort  to  make 
them  is  studiously  concealed ;  in  which  a  series 
of  selected  circumstances  is  set  forth ;  in  which 
you  feel,  but  are  not  told,  that  the  principle  of 
the  writer's  selection  was  to  make  his  composi 
tion  pleasant." 

It  is  difficult  not  to  agree  with  Mr.  Bagehot 
and  other  critics  who  have  uttered  similar 
lamentations.  The  letter  which  resembled  a 
good  light  article  has  indeed  disappeared  from 
our  midst,  and  I  am  not  sure  that  many  dry 
eyes  have  not  witnessed  its  departure.  Light 
articles  are  now  provided  for  us  in  such  gen 
erous  measure  by  our  magazines  that  we  have 
scant  need  to  exact  them  from  our  friends.  In 
fact,  we  should  have  no  time  to  read  them,  if 


194  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

they  were  written.  A  more  serious  loss  is  the 
total  absence  of  any  minute  information  or 
gossip  upon  current  topics  in  the  mass  of 
modern  correspondence.  The  letter  which  is 
so  useful  to  historians,  which  shows  us,  and 
shows  us  as  nothing  else  can  ever  do,  the  ordi 
nary,  every-day  life  of  prominent  men  and 
women,  this  letter  has  also  disappeared,  and 
there  is  nothing  to  take  its  place.  We  can 
reconstruct  the  England,  or  at  least  the  Lon 
don  of  George  II.  and  George  III.  from  the 
pages  of  Horace  Walpole.  Who  is  there 
likely  to  hand  down  in  this  fashion  to  a  com 
ing  generation  the  England  of  Queen  Victoria? 
Neither  does  the  fact  of  Walpole's  being  by 
no  means  a  bigot  in  the  matter  of  truth-telling 
interfere  with  his  real  value.  He  lies  con 
sciously  and  ^ith  a  set  purpose  here  and  there ; 
he  is  unconsciously  and  even  inevitably  vera 
cious  in  the  main.  There  are  some  points, 
observes  Mr.  Bagehot,  on  which  almost  every 
body's  letters  are  true.  "  The  delineation  of 
a  recurring  and  familiar  life  is  beyond  the 
reach  of  a  fraudulent  fancy.  Horace  Walpole 
was  not  a  very  scrupulous  narrator,  yet  it  was 
too  much  trouble,  even  for  him,  to  tell  lies 


LETTERS.  195 

on  many  things.  His  stories  and  conspic 
uous  scandals  are  no  doubt  often  unfounded ; 
but  there  is  a  gentle  undercurrent  of  daily 
unremarkable  life  and  manners  which  he 
evidently  assumed  as  a  datum  for  his  histor 
ical  imagination." 

We  may  be  quite  sure,  for  example,  on  his 
testimony,  that  people  of  fashion  went  to 
Eanelagh  two  hours  after  the  music  was  over, 
because  it  was  thought  vulgar  to  go  earlier; 
that  Lord  Derby's  cook  gave  him  warning, 
rather  than  dress  suppers  at  three  o'clock  in 
the  morning;  that  when  a  masked  ball  was 
given  by  eighteen  young  noblemen  at  Soho, 
the  mob  in  the  street  stopped  the  fine  coaches, 
held  up  torches  to  the  windows,  and  demanded 
to  have  the  masks  pulled  off  and  put  on  at 
their  pleasure,  "but  all  with  extreme  good- 
humor  and  civility ; "  that  he,  Horace  Wai- 
pole,  one  night  at  Vauxhall,  helped  Lady 
Caroline  Petersham  to  mince  seven  chickens 
in  a  china  dish,  which  chickens  "  Lady  Caro 
line  stewed  over  a  lamp,  with  three  pats  of 
butter  and  a  flagon  of  water,  stirring  and  rat 
tling  and  laughing,  and  we  every  minute  ex 
pecting  to  have  the  dish  fly  about  our  ears  ;  " 


196  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

;hat  at  the  funeral  of  George  II.,  the  Duke  of 
Newcastle  —  that  curious  burlesque  of  an  Eng 
lish  nobleman  —  stood  on  the  train  of  the 
butcher  Duke  of  Cumberland  to  avoid  the  chill 
of  the  marble.  If  we  think  these  things  are 
not  worth  knowing,  we  had  better  not  read 
Walpole's  letters,  for  these  are  the  things 
which  he  delights  in  telling  us.  Macaulay 
thought  these  things  were  not  worth  knowing, 
and  he  has  accordingly  branded  Walpole  as  a 
superficial  observer,  a  vain  and  shallow  world 
ling.  How,  he  wonders,  can  we  listen  seriously 
to  a  man  who  haunted  auctions ;  who  collected 
bricabrac ;  who  sat  up  all  night  playing  cards 
with  fine,  frivolous  ladies;  who  liked  being 
a  fashionable  gentleman,  and  had  no  proper 
pride  in  belonging  to  the  august  assemblage 
of  authors ;  and  who,  most  deadly  crime  of  all, 
lived  face  to  face  with  the  great  Whig  leaders 
of  the  day,  and  was  not  in  the  least  impressed 
by  the  magnitude  of  the  distinction  thus  con 
ferred  on  him.  But,  after  all,  we  cannot,  every 
one  of  us,  be  built  upon  the  same  solemn  and 
righteous  lines.  It  is  not  even  granted  to 
every  one  to  be  a  fervent  and  consistent  Whig. 
Horace  Walpole,  you  see,  was  Horace  Wai- 


LETTERS.  197 

pole,  and  not  Thomas  Babington  Macaulay: 
therefore  Macaulay  despised  him,  and  called 
on  all  his  readers  to  despise  him  too.  We  can 
only  have  recourse  to  Mr.  Lang's  philosophy : 
"  'T  is  a  wide  world,  my  masters ;  there  is  room 
for  both."  Walpole  is  the  prince  of  letter- 
writers,  because  writing  letters  was  the  inspi 
ration,  the  ruling  passion  of  his  life,  and  he 
was  preeminently  qualified  for  the  task.  It 
has  been  well  said  that  had  some  evil  chance 
wrecked  him,  like  Robinson  Crusoe,  upon  a 
desert  island,  he  would  have  gone  on  writing 
letters  just  the  same,  and  waited  for  a  ship  to 
carry  them  away.  This  is  a  pleasant  conceit, 
because  the  spectacle  of  Horace  Walpole  on  a 
desert  island  is  one  which  captivates  the  idle 
fancy.  Think  of  his  little  airs  and  graces,  his 
courtly  affectations,  his  fine  clothes  and  frip 
pery,  his  dainty  epicureanism,  his  sense  of 
good  comradeship,  all  thrown  away  upon  a 
desert  island,  and  upon  the  society  of  a  parrot 
and  a  goat.  What  malicious  tales  he  would 
have  been  forced  to  invent  about  the  parrot ! 
It  is  best  not  to  believe  evil  of  any  one  upon 
Walpole's  word,  especially  not  of  any  one  who 
had  ever  attacked  Sir  Robert's  ministry ;  for 


198  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

Horace's  filial  piety  took  the  very  exclusive 
form  of  undying  enmity  to  all  his  father's  po 
litical  opponents.  But  when  we  have  passed 
over  and  tried  to  forget  all  that  is  spiteful  and 
caustic  and  coarse  in  these  celebrated  letters, 
there  is  a  great  deal  left,  a  great  deal  that  is 
not  even  the  current  gossip  of  the  day.  He 
goes  to  Paris  in  1765,  and  finds  that  laughing 
is  out  of  fashion  in  that  once  gay  capital. 
"  Good  folks !  "  he  cries,  "  they  have  no  time 
to  laugh.  There  are  God  and  the  king  to  be 
pulled  down  first,  and  men  and  women,  one 
and  all,  are  devoutly  employed  in  the  demoli 
tion.  They  think  me  quite  profane  for  having 
my  belief  left."  A  few  years  later,  Walpole 
sees  clearly  that  French  politics  must  end  in 
"  despotism,  a  civil  war,  or  assassination." 
The  age  is  not,  he  says,  as  he  once  thought, 
an  age  of  abortion;  but  rather  "an  age  of 
seeds  which  are  to  produce  strange  crops  here 
after."  Surely,  even  Macaulay  might  allow 
that  these  are  the  words  of  a  thinker,  of  a 
prophet,  perhaps,  standing  unheeded  in  the 
marketplace. 

Granted,  then,  that   the  light-article  letter, 
and  the   letter  which   gives  us  material  with 


LETTERS.  199 

which  to  fill  up  the  gaps  and  crannies  of  his 
tory,  which  holds  the  life  of  the  past  embalmed 
in  its  faded  pages,  have  disappeared,  perhaps 
forever.  There  is  another  letter  which  has  not 
disappeared,  which  never  can  disappear  as  long 
as  man  stays  man  and  woman,  woman,  —  the 
letter  which  reveals  to  us  the  personality  of 
the  writer ;  which  is  dear  and  valuable  to  us 
because  in  it  his  hand  stretches  out  frankly 
from  the  past,  and  draws  us  to  his  side.  It 
may  be  long  or  short,  carefully  or  carelessly 
written,  full  of  useful  information  or  full  of 
idle  nonsense.  We  do  not  stop  to  ask.  It  is 
enough  for  us  to  know  from  whom  it  came. 
And  the  finest  type  of  such  a  letter  may  surely 
be  found  in  the  well-loved  correspondence  of 
Charles  Lamb.  If  we  eliminated  from  his 
pages  all  critical  matter,  all  those  shrewd  and 
admirable  verdicts  upon  prose  and  verse ;  if 
we  cut  out  ruthlessly  such  scraps  of  news 
as  they  occasionally  convey ;  if  we  banished 
all  references  to  celebrated  people,  from  the 
"  obnoxious  squeak  "  of  Shelley's  voice  to  the 
generous  sympathy  expressed  for  Napoleon,  we 
should  still  have  left  —  the  writer  himself, 
which  is  all  that  we  desire.  We  should  still 


200  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

have  the  record  of  that  harmless  and  patient, 
that  brave  and  sorely  tried  life.  We  should 
still  see  infinite  mirth  and  infinite  pathos  inter 
woven  upon  every  page.  We  should  catch  the 
echo  of  that  clear,  kind  laughter  which  never 
hardens  into  scorn.  Lamb  laughs  at  so  many 
people,  and  never  once  wrongs  any  one.  We 
should  see  the  flashes  of  a  wit  which  carries  n? 
venom  in  its  sting.  We  should  feel  that  atmos 
phere  of  wonderful,  whimsical  humor  illumi 
nating  all  the  trivial  details  of  existence.  We 
should  recognize  in  the  turning  of  every  sen 
tence,  the  conscious  choice  of  every  word,  the 
fine  and  distinctive  qualities  of  a  genius  that 
has  no  parallel. 

It  matters  little  at  what  page  we  read.  Here 
is  the  sad  story  of  Henry  Kobinson's  waistcoat, 
which  Mary  Lamb  tried  to  bring  over  from 
France,  but  which  was  seized  at  the  Custom 
House,  "  for  the  use  of  the  king,"  says 
Charles  dryly.  "  He  will  probably  appear  in  it 
at  the  next  levee."  Here  is  the  never-to-be- 
forgotten  tea-party  at  Miss  Benjay's,  where 
that  tenth-rate  little  upstart  of  a  woman — • 
type  of  a  genus  that  survives  to-day  —  alter- 
nately  patronized  and  snubbed  her  guest, 


LETTERS.  201 

flinging  at  him  her  pitiful  scraps  of  infor 
mation,  marveling  that  he  did  not  under 
stand  French,  insulting  him  when  he  ventured 
an  opinion  upon  poetry,  —  "  seeing  that  it  was 
my  own  trade  in  a  manner,"  —  imparting  to 
him  Hannah  More's  valuable  dogmas  on  edu 
cation,  feeding  him  scantily  with  macaroons, 
and  sending  him  home,  —  not  angry  as  he  had 
a  right  to  be,  as  any  other  man  would  have 
been  in  his  place,  only  infinitely  amused.  And 
then  some  people  say  that  a  keen  sense  of  the 
ridiculous  is  not  a  kindly  sentiment !  It  is,  we 
know  it  is,  when  we  read  the  letter  to  Cole 
ridge  in  which  Lamb  tells  how  he  went  to  con 
dole  with  poor  Joseph  Cottle  on  the  death  of 
his  brother  •  Amos,  and  how,  as  the  readiest 
comfort  he  could  offer,  he  swiftly  introduced 
into  his  conversation  Joseph's  epic  poem, 
"Alfred,"  luring  the  mourner  gently  from  his 
grief  by  arousing  his  poetic  vanity.  The  dear, 
good,  stupid  Cottle,  brightening  visibly  under 
such  soothing  treatment,  fixed  upon  his  visitor 
a  benevolent  gaze,  and  prepared  himself  for 
melancholy  enjoyment.  After  a  while  the 
name  of  Alswitha,  Alfred's  queen,  was  slipped 
adroitly  into  the  discourse.  "At  that  mo- 


202  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

ment,"  says  Lamb,  "  I  could  perceive  that 
Cottle  had  forgot  his  brother  was  so  lately  be 
come  a  blessed  spirit.  In  the  language  of 
mathematicians,  the  author  was  as  nine,  the 
brother  as  one.  I  felt  my  cue,  and  strong  pity 
stirring  at  the  root,  I  went  to  work."  So  the 
little  comedy  proceeds,  until  it  reaches  its  cli 
max  when  George  Dyer,  to  whom  all  poems 
were  good  poems,  remarks  that  the  dead  Amos 
was  estimable  both  for  his  head  and  heart,  and 
would  have  made  a  fine  poet  if  he  had  lived. 
"  To  this,"  says  Lamb,  "  Joseph  fully  assented, 
but  could  not  help  adding  that  he  always 
thought  the  qualities  of  his  brother's  heart  ex 
ceeded  those  of  his  head.  I  believe  his  brother, 
when  living,  had  formed  precisely  the  same 
idea  of  him ;  and  I  apprehend  the  world  will 
assent  to  both  judgments."  Now  if  we  will  but 
try  to  picture  to  ourselves  how  Carlyle  would 
have  behaved  to  poor  Miss  Benjay,  how  Wai' 
pole  would  have  sneered  at  Joseph  Cottle,  we 
will  understand  better  the  harmless,  the  al 
most  loving  nature  of  Charles  Lamb's  raillery, 
which  we  can  enjoy  so  frankly  because  it  gave 
no  pain. 

As  for  the  well-known  fact  that  Lamb's  let- 


LETTERS.  203 

'jers  reflect  nothing  of  the  political  tumult,  the 
stirring  warfare,  amid  which  he  lived,  it  is 
interesting  to  place  by  their  side  the  contem 
porary  letters  of  Sir  Gilbert  Elliot,  the  first 
Earl  of  Minto,  a  correspondence  the  princi 
pal  charm  of  which  is  the  revelation  it  makes 
of  a  nature  so  fine  and  brave,  so  upright  and 
honorable,  so  wise  and  strong  and  good,  that 
we  can  best  understand  the  secret  of  England's 
greatness  when  we  know  she  has  given  birth 
to  such  sons.  To  study  the  life  of  a  man  who 
played  so  prominent  a  part  in  home  and  foreign 
politics  is  to  study  the  history  of  Europe  dur 
ing  those  troubled  years.  In  Lord  Minto's 
letters  we  follow  breathlessly  the  desperate 
struggle  with  Napoleon,  the  ceaseless  wran 
gling  of  the  Allies,  the  dangerous  rebellions  in 
Ireland,  the  grave  perplexities  of  the  Indian 
empire ;  and  besides  these  all-important  topics, 
we  have  side-lights  thrown  upon  social  life. 
We  learn,  for  instance,  that  Mrs.  Crewe,  the 
celebrated  beauty  and  toast  of  the  Whigs, 
liked  good  conversation,  and  took  an  interest 
and  even  a  part,  writes  Sir  Gilbert  naively  to 
his  wife,  "  in  all  subjects  which  men  would 
naturally  talk  of  when  not  in  woman's  com- 


204  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

pany,  as  politics  and  literature."  We  learn 
also  —  what  we  half  suspected  before  —  that 
Madame  de  Stael  was  so  greedy  of  admira 
tion  that  she  was  capable  of  purchasing  "  any 
quantity  of  anybody  at  any  price,  and  among 
other  prices  by  a  traffic  of  mutual  flattery ;  " 
and  that  she  was  never  satisfied  unless  she 
could  have  the  whole  conversation  to  herself, 
and  be  the  centre  of  every  company. 

Now,  it  is  hardly  to  be  expected  that  the 
letters  of  a  great  statesman  and  the  letters  of 
an  obscure  clerk  in  the  India  House  should 
reveal  precisely  the  same  interests  and  infor 
mation,  any  more  than  it  is  to  be  expected  that 
the  letters  of  the  statesman  —  who  was,  after 
all,  a  statesman  and  no  more  —  should  equal 
in  literary  charm  and  merit  the  letters  of  the 
clerk  who  was  in  addition  an  immortal  genius. 
But  when  we  think  how  profoundly  England 
was  shaken  and  disturbed  by  the  discords  and 
apprehensions  of  those  troubled  times,  how 
wars  and  the  rumors  of  wars  darkened  the 
air,  and  stirred  the  blood  of  country  bump 
kins  and  placid  rural  squires,  it  seems  a  little 
strange  that  Lamb,  who  lived  long  years  in 
the  heart  of  London,  and  must  have  heard 


LETTERS.  205 

so  much  of  these  things,  should  have  written 
about  them  so  little.  He  does  learn  when 
there  is  a  change  of  ministry,  because  he  hears 
a  butcher  say  something  about  it  in  the  mar 
ket-place.  He  cultivates  a  frank  admiration 
for  Napoleon,  whom  all  his  countrymen  hated 
and  feared  so  madly.  He  would  be  glad,  he 
says,  to  stand  bareheaded  at  his  table,  doing 
honor  to  him  in  his  fall.  And,  after  the  bat 
tle  of  Trafalgar,  he  writes  to  Hazlitt :  "  Lord 
Nelson  is  quiet  at  last.  His  ghost  only  keeps 
a  slight  fluttering  in  odes  and  elegies  in  news 
papers,  and  impromptus  which  could  not  be 
got  ready  before  the  funeral." 

These  characteristic  passages  and  others 
like  them  are  all  we  hear  of  public  matters 
from  Charles  Lamb,  and  few  of  us  would  ask 
for  more.  It  is  the  continual  sounding  of  the 
personal  note  that  makes  his  pages  so  dear  to 
us ;  it  is  the  peculiarly  restful  character  of  his 
beloved  chit-chat  that  keeps  them  so  fresh  and 
delightful.  And  while  there  is  but  one  Lamb, 
there  are  many  letters  which  have  in  them 
something  of  this  same  personal  quality,  some 
thing  of  this  restful  charm.  The  supply  can 
never  be  exhausted,  because  letter-writing-- 


206  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

not  light  articles  now,  nor  brilliant  semi-his 
toric  narratives,  but  real  letter-writing  —  is 
founded  on  a  need  as  old  and  as  young  as  hu 
manity  itself,  the  need  that  one  human  being 
has  of  another.  The  craving  for  sympathy ; 
the  natural  and  healthy  egotism  which  prompts 
us  to  open  our  minds  to  absent  friends ;  the 
desire  we  all  feel  to  make  known  to  others 
that  which  is  happening  to  ourselves;  the 
certainty  we  all  feel  that  others  will  be  pro 
foundly  interested  in  this  revelation ;  the 
inextinguishable  impulse  to  "  pass  on "  ex 
periences  either  of  soul  or  body,  to  share  with 
some  one  else  that  which  we  are  hearing,  or 
seeing,  or  feeling,  or  suffering,  or  enjoying,  — 
these  are  the  motives  which  make  letter-writ 
ing  essential  and  inevitable,  crowd  it  into 
the  busiest  lives,  assimilate  it  with  the  dullest 
understandings,  and  fit  it  into  some  crevice 
of  every  one's  daily  experience.  Thus  it  hap 
pens  that  there  is  a  strong  family  resemblance 
between  letters  of  every  age  and  every  country ; 
they  really  change  less  than  we  are  pleased 
to  think.  The  Kev.  Augustus  Jessopp,  in  one 
of  his  delightful  essays,  quotes  from  a  long 
and  chatty  letter  written,  about  the  time  that 


LETTERS.  207 

Moses  was  a  little  lad,  by  an  Egyptian  gentle 
man  named  Pambesa  to  a  friend  named  Ame- 
nemapt,  and  giving  a  very  lively  and  minute 
account  of  the  city  of  Rameses,  which  Pam 
besa  was  then  happily  visiting  for  the  first 
time.  We  have  all  of  us  had  just  such  let 
ters  from  our  absent  friends,  and  have  read 
them  with  mingled  pleasure,  and  envy,  and  ir 
ritation.  Pambesa  the  traveler  is  not  disposed 
to  spare  Amenemapt  the  stay-at-home  any  de 
tail  of  what  he  is  missing.  Never  was  there 
such  a  city  of  the  gods  as  this  particular  town 
of  Rameses  which  Amenemapt  was  not  des 
tined  to  see.  There  might  be  found  the  best 
of  good  living ;  vines,  and  fig-trees,  and  onion 
beds,  and  nursery  gardens.  Stout  drinkers 
too  were  its  jovial  inhabitants,  with  a  variety 
of  strong  liquors,  sweet  syrups  richer  than 
honey,  red  wine,  and  very  excellent  imported 
beer.  Its  women  were  all  well  dressed,  and 
curled  their  hair  enticingly,  smoothing  it  with 
sweet  oil.  They  stood  at  their  doors,  hold 
ing  nosegays  in  their  hands,  and  presenting 
a  very  alluring  appearance  to  this  gay  and 
shameless  Pambesa,  who  could  hardly  make  up 
his  mind  to  pass  them  coldly  by.  Altogether, 


208  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

Rameses  was  an  exceedingly  pleasant  town  to 
visit,  and  the  Egyptian  gentleman  was  having 
a  very  jolly  time  of  it,  and  we,  reading  his 
correspondence,  fall  to  thinking  that  human 
nature  before  the  Exodus  was  uncommonly 
like  human  nature  to-day.  This  is  one  of  the 
delights  of  letter-reading,  that  it  reveals  to  us, 
not  only  the  life  of  the  past,  but,  better  still, 
the  people  of  the  past,  our  brothers  and  sis 
ters  who,  being  dead,  still  live  in  their  written 
pages.  For  the  scholar  the  interest  lies  in 
what  Pambesa  has  to  tell ;  for  the  rest  of  us 
the  interest  lies  in  Pambesa  himself,  who,  so 
many  thousand  years  ago,  drank  the  bitter 
beer,  and  stared  at  the  pretty  girls  standing 
curled  and  flower-bedecked,  with  those  de 
mure,  faint  smiles  which  eenturies  cannot  alter 
or  impair. 

So  it  continues,  as  we  run  swiftly  down  the 
years,  the  bulk  of  correspondence  increasing 
enormously  at  every  stage,  until  we  reach  such 
monuments  of  industry  as  the  famous  Cecil 
letters,  preserved  at  Hatfield,  and  comprising 
over  thirty  thousand  documents.  It  is  pleasant 
to  feel  we  need  read  none  of  these,  and  that, 
if  we  search  for  character,  we  may  find  it  in 


LETTERS.  209 

thirty  words  as  well  as  in  thirty  thousand  rolls 
of  musty  parchment.  We  may  find  it  surely 
in  that  historic  note  dispatched  by  Annt 
Countess  of  Dorset,  to  Sir  Joseph  Williamson, 
Secretary  of  State  under  Charles  II. ,  who 
wanted  her  to  appoint  a  courtier  as  member 
from  Appleby.  Nothing  could  well  be  shorter ; 
nothing  could  possibly  be  more  significant. 
This  is  all :  — 

SIR,  —  I  have  been  bullied  by  an  usurper,  I  have 
been  ill-treated  by  a  court,  but  I  won't  be  dictated 
to  by  a  subject.     Your  man  shall  not  stand. 
ANN  DORSET,  PEMBROKE  AND  MONTGOMERY. 

Now  if  you  don't  feel  you  know  Ann  Dorset 
pretty  well  after  reading  those  four  lines,  you 
would  n't  know  her  if  she  left  a  diary  as  long 
as  Samuel  Pepys's ;  and  if  you  don't  feel,  after 
reading  them,  that  she  is  worth  the  knowing,  it 
is  hopeless  for  her  to  try  and  win  your  regard. 
Another  and  still  more  amusing  instance  of 
self -revelation  may  be  found  in  a  manuscript 
familiar  to  many  who  have  visited  the  Bod 
leian  Library  at  Oxford.  There,  among  other 
precious  treasures,  is  a  collection  of  notes 
scribbled  by  Charles  II.  to  Clarendon,  and 


210  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

by  Clarendon  to  Charles  II.,  to  beguile  the 
tedium  of  Council.  They  look,  for  all  the 
world,  like  the  notes  which  school-girls  are 
wont  to  scribble  to  one  another,  to  beguile  the 
tedium  of  study.  On  one  page,  Charles  in  a 
little  careless  hand,  not  unlike  a  school-girl's, 
writes  that  he  wants  to  go  to  Tunbridge,  to  see 
his  sister.  Clarendon  in  larger,  firmer  charac 
ters  writes  back  that  there  is  no  reason  why  he 
should  not,  if  he  can  return  in  a  few  days,  and 
adds  tentatively,  "  I  suppose  you  will  go  with 
a  light  train."  Charles,  as  though  glowing 
with  conscious  rectitude,  responds,  "  I  intend 
to  take  nothing  but  my  night-bag."  Claren 
don,  who  knows  his  master's  luxurious  habits, 
is  startled  out  of  all  propriety.  "  Gods !  "  he 
writes :  "  you  will  not  go  without  forty  or 
fifty  horse."  Then  Charles,  who  seems  to 
have  been  waiting  for  this  point  in  the  dia 
logue,  tranquilly  replies  in  one  straggling  line 
at  the  bottom  of  the  page.  "  I  count  that  part 
of  my  night-bag."  How  plainly  we  can  hear 
the  royal  chuckle  which  accompanied  this  gra 
cious  explanation !  How  really  valuable  is 
this  scrap  of  correspondence  which  shows  us 
for  a  moment  Charles  Stuart ;  not  the  Charles 


LETTERS.  211 

of  Sir  Walter's  loyal  stories,  nor  the  Charles 
of  Macaulay's  eloquent  invectives ;  but  Charles 
himself,  our  fellow  mortal,  and  a  very  human 
character  indeed. 

If,  as  Mr.  Bagehot  affirms,  it  is  for  the  pres 
ent  day  to  provide  models  which  shall  make 
the  art  of  note-writing  classical,  we  can  begin 
no  better  than  by  studying  the  specimens  al 
ready  in  our  keeping.  If  we  want  humor, 
pathos,  a  whole  tale  told  in  half  a  dozen  words, 
we  have  these  things  already  in  every  sentence 
of  Steele's  hasty  scrawls  to  his  wife  :  "  Prue, 
Prue,  look  a  little  dressed,  and  be  beautiful." 
—  And  again :  "  'T  is  the  glory  of  a  Woman, 
Prue,  to  be  her  husband's  Friend  and  Com 
panion,  and  not  his  Sovereign  Director."  —  Or 
"  Good-nature,  added  to  that  beautiful  form 
God  has  given  you,  would  make  an  happinesse 
too  great  for  Humane  life."  —  And  finally, 
"I  am,  dear  Prue,  a  little  in  Drink,  but  at 
all  times,  Your  Faithful  Husband,  Richard 
Steele." 

These  bare  scraps  of  letters,  briefer,  many 
of  them,  than  the  "scandalous  half -sheets" 
which  Prue  was  wont  to  send  in  return,  give 
us  a  tolerably  clear  insight  into  the  precise 


212  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

nature  of  Steele's  domestic  happiness.  We 
understand,  not  only  the  writer,  but  the  recipi 
ent  of  such  missives,  poor  petulant  Prue,  who 
has  had  scant  mercy  shown  her  in  Thackeray's 
brilliant  pages,  but  whose  own  life  was  not 
passed  upon  a  bed  of  roses.  We  are  eager 
to  catch  these  swift  glimpses  of  real  people 
through  a  few  careless  lines  which  have 
miraculously  escaped  destruction ;  or  perhaps 
through  a  brief  aside  in  an  important,  but,  to 
us,  very  uninteresting  communication ;  as,  for 
example,  when  Marlborough  reopens  a  dis 
patch  to  say  that  he  has  just  received  word  of 
the  surprise  and  defeat  of  the  Dutch  general, 
Opdam.  "  Since  I  sealed  my  letter,"  he  writes 
with  characteristic  dry  ness,  "  we  have  a  report 
from  Breda  that  Opdam  is  beaten.  I  pray 
God  it  be  not  so,  for  he  is  very  capable  of 
having  it  happen  to  him."  It  is  difficult  not  to 
enjoy  this,  because,  if  we  sat  within  the  shadow 
of  Marlborough's  tent,  we  could  not  hear  him 
more  distinctly ;  and  the  desire  we  feel  to  get 
nearer  to  the  people  who  interest  us,  to  know 
them  as  they  really  were,  is,  in  the  main,  nat 
ural  and  wholesome.  Yet  there  must  be  some 
limit  set  to  the  gratification  of  this  desire,  if 


LETTERS.  213 

we  are  to  check  the  unwarranted  publishing 
of  private  letters  which  has  become  the  recog 
nized  disgrace  of  literature.  It  is  hard  for  us 
to  understand  just  when  our  curiosity  ceases  to 
be  permissible ;  it  is  harder  still  for  editors  to 
understand  just  when  their  privileges  cease  to 
be  beneficial.  Not  many  years  ago  it  was  pos 
sible  for  Mr.  Bagehot  to  say  that  he  took  com 
fort  in  thinking  of  Shelley  as  a  poet  about 
whom  our  information  was  mercifully  incom 
plete.  Thanks  to  Professor  Dowden,  it  is  in 
complete  no  longer ;  but  we  have  scant  cause 
to  congratulate  ourselves  on  what  we  have 
gained  by  his  disclosures.  Mr.  Froude,  acting 
up  to  an  heroic  theory  of  friendship,  has  pil 
loried  Carlyle  for  the  pleasure  and  the  pain  of 
gaping  generations ;  but  there  are  some  who 
turn  away  with  averted  eyes  from  the  sordid, 
shameful  spectacle.  Within  the  last  decade 
the  reading  world  welcomed  with  acclamations 
a  volume  of  letters  from  the  pen  of  one  who 
had  made  it  his  especial  request  that  no 
such  correspondence  should  ever  be  published. 
How  many  of  those  who  laughed  over  the 
witty,  whimsical,  intimate,  affectionate  out 
pourings  of  Thackeray  paused  to  consider 


214  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

that  they  would  one  and  all  have  remained  un 
written,  could  their  author  have  foreseen  their 
fate.  They  were  not  meant  for  us,  they  never 
would  have  reached  us,  had  his  known  desires 
and  prejudices  been  respected.  Many  of  them 
are  delightful,  as  when  he  tells  with  sedate 
humor  of  his  absurd  proposal  to  Macaulay 
that  they  should  change  identities  at  Sir 
George  Napier's  dinner,  so  as  to  confuse  and 
baffle  a  young  American  woman,  the  desire  of 
whose  heart  was  to  meet  these  two  great  lions, 
and  of  Macaulay's  disgust  at  the  bare  notion 
of  jesting  with  anything  so  serious  as  his  lit 
erary  reputation.  Yet  when  the  recipient  of 
these  letters  yielded  to  the  temptation  of  pub 
lishing  them,  she  would  have  done  well  to  sup 
press  those  trivial,  colorless,  and  private  com 
munications  which  can  have  no  possible  value 
or  interest  to  others.  An  invitation  to  dinner 
is  of  some  importance  the  day  that  it  arrives, 
but  it  loses  its  vitality  when  reprinted  forty 
years  after  the  dinner  is  eaten.  There  is  hor 
ror  in  the  thought  that  a  man  of  genius  can 
never  promise  himself  that  grateful  privacy 
which  is  the  lot  of  his  happier  and  less  distin 
guished  brothers;  but  that  after  he  has  died  in 


LETTERS.  215 

the  least  ostentatious  manner  lie  knows  how, 
the  whole  wide  world  is  made  acquainted  with 
his  diversions  and  his  digestion,  with  his  fee 
blest  jokes  and  his  most  tender  confidences. 
The  problem  of  what  to  give  and  what  to  with 
hold  must  be  solved  by  editors  who,  having 
laboriously  collected  their  material,  feel  a  nat 
ural  disposition  to  use  it.  When,  as  occasion 
ally  happens,  the  editor  regards  the  author 
simply  as  his  prey,  he  never  conceives  the  de 
sirability  of  withholding  anything.  He  is  as 
unreserved  as  a  savage,  and  probably  defends 
himself,  as  did  Montaigne  when  reproached 
for  the  impropriety  of  his  essays,  by  saying 
that  if  people  do  not  like  details  of  that  de 
scription  they  certainly  take  great  pains  to 
read  them. 

Among  the  letters  too  charming  to  be  lost, 
yet  too  personal  and  frankly  confiding  to  be 
read  without  some  twinges  of  conscience,  are 
those  of  Edward  Fitzgerald,  the  last  man  in 
all  England  to  have  coveted  such  posthumous 
publicity.  They  reveal  truthfully  that  kind, 
shy,  proud,  indolent,  indifferent,  and  intensely 
conservative  nature ;  a  scholar  without  the 
prick  of  ambition,  a  critic  with  no  desire  to 


216  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

be  judicial,  an  unwearied  mind  turned  aside 
from  healthy  and  normal  currents  of  activity. 
Yet  the  indiscreet  publishing  of  a  private 
opinion,  a  harmless  bit  of  criticism  such  as 
any  man  has  a  right  to  express  to  a  friend, 
drew  down  upon  this  least  aggressive  of  authors 
abuse  too  coarse  to  be  quoted.  It  is  easy  to 
say  that  Browning  dishonored  himself  rather 
than  Fitzgerald  by  the  brutality  of  his  lan 
guage.  This  is  true;  but,  nevertheless,  it  is 
not  pleasant  to  go  down  to  posterity  branded 
with  Billingsgate  by  a  great  poet;  and  it  is 
doubly  hard  to  bear  such  a  weight  of  vitupera 
tion  because  a  word  said  in  a  letter  has  been 
ruthlessly  given  to  the  world. 

The  unhesitating  fashion  in  which  women 
reveal  themselves  to  their  correspondents 
makes  it  seem  treachery  to  read  their  printed 
pages.  Those  girlish  confidences  of  Jane 
Austen  to  Cassandra,  so  frank  and  gay,  so  full 
of  jokes  and  laughter,  and  country  gossip,  and 
sisterly  affection,  what  a  contrast  they  afford 
to  the  attitude  of  unbroken  reserve  which  Miss 
Austen  always  presented  to  the  world !  Yet 
now  the  world  is  free  to  follow  each  foolish 
little  jest,  and  to  pass  judgment  on  the  wit  it 


LETTERS.  217 

holds.  Those  affectionate  and  not  over-wise 
outpourings  of  Miss  Mitford,  with  their  effusive 
terms  of  endearment ;  those  dignified  and  sol 
emn  reflections  of  Sara  Coleridge,  humanized 
occasionally  by  a  chance  remark  about  the 
baby,  or  an  inadvertent  admission  that  she  has 
gone  down  twice  to  supper  at  an  evening  party ; 
those  keen,  combative,  brilliant  letters  of  Mrs. 
Carlyle  that  are  so  bitter-sweet ;  those  unre 
served  and  purely  personal  communications  of 
Geraldine  Jewsbury  which  have  no  message 
whatever  for  the  public  ;  —  how  much  has  been 
given  us  to  which  we  show  scant  claim  !  It  is 
true  that  in  the  days  when  the  Polite  Letter- 
Writer  ruled  the  land,  and  his  baleful  influence 
was  felt  on  every  side,  a  great  many  women 
wrote  elaborate  missives  which  nobody  now 
wants  to  read,  but  which  were  then  more  highly 
prized  than  the  gossiping  pages  we  have  learned 
to  love  so  well.  These  sedate  blue-stockings 
told  neither  their  own  affairs  nor  their  neigh 
bors'  ;  but  confined  themselves  to  dignified  gen 
eralities,  expressed  with  Johnsonian  elegance. 
There  was  Miss  Seward,  for  example,  who  at 
times  was  too  ridiculous  for  even  Scott's  genial 
forbearance ;  yet  whose  letters  won  her  such  a 


218  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

reputation  that  we  find  them  diligently  sought 
for,  years  after  they  were  penned.  Fancy 
admiring  groups  of  men  and  women  listen 
ing  to  Miss  Seward's  celebrated  epistles  to 
Miss  Rogers  and  Miss  Weston,  one  of  which 
begins :  — 

"  Soothing  and  welcome  to  me,  dear  Sophia, 
is  the  regret  you  express  for  our  separation  I 
Pleasant  were  the  weeks  we  have  recently 
passed  together  in  this  ancient  and  embowered 
mansion.  I  had  strongly  felt  the  silence  and 
vacancy  of  the  depriving  day  on  which  you 
vanished.  How  prone  are  our  hearts  per 
versely  to  quarrel  with  the  friendly  coercion 
of  employment,  at  the  very  instant  in  which  it 
is  clearing  the  torpid  and  injurious  mists  of 
unavailing  melancholy." 

The  letter  which  opens  in  this  promising 
manner  closes,  as  might  be  expected,  with  a 
fervent  and  glowing  apostrophe  to  the  absent 
one:  — 

"  Virtuous  friendship,  how  pure,  how  sacred 
are  thy  delights  !  Sophia,  thy  mind  is  capable 
of  tasting  them  in  all  their  poignancy.  Against 
how  many  of  life's  incidents  may  that  capacity 
be  considered  as  a  counterpoise.'* 


LETTERS.  219 

Now,  in  the  last  century,  when  people  re 
ceived  letters  of  this  kind,  they  did  not,  as  we 
might  suppose,  laugh  and  tear  them  up.  They 
treasured  them  sacredly  in  their  desks,  and 
read  them  to  their  young  nieces  and  nephews, 
and  made  fair  copies  of  them  for  less  favored 
friends.  Yet  the  same  mail-bags  which  groaned 
under  these  ponderous  compositions  were  laden 
now  and  then  with  Sir  Walter's  delightful 
pages,  all  aglow  with  that  diffused  spirit  of 
healthy  enjoyment,  that  sane  and  happy  know 
ledge  of  life,  that  dauntless  and  incomparable 
courage.  Perhaps  they  carried  some  of  Cow- 
per's  letters,  rich  mines  of  pleasure  and  profit 
for  us  all,  full  to  the  brim  of  homely  pleasant 
details  which  only  leisure  can  find  time  to  note. 
A  man  who  was  even  ordinarily  busy  would 
never  have  stopped  to  observe  the  things  which 
Cowper  tells  us  about  so  charmingly,  —  the 
bustling  candidate  kissing  all  the  maids ;  the 
hungry  beggar  who  declines  to  eat  vermicelli 
soup ;  the  young  thief  who  is  whipped  for  steal 
ing  the  butcher's  iron-work  ;  the  kitchen  table 
which  is  scrubbed  into  paralysis ;  the  retinue 
of  kittens  in  the  barn ;  the  foolish  old  cat  who 
must  needs  pursue  a  viper  crawling  in  the  sun ; 


220  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

and  the  favorite  tabby  who  ungratefully  ran 
away  into  a  ditch,  and  cost  the  family  four 
shillings  before  she  was  recovered.  Cowper 
had  time  to  see  all  these  things,  had  time  to 
hear  the  soft  click  of  Mrs.  Unwin's  knitting- 
needles,  and  the  hum  of  the  boiling  tea-kettle  ; 
and  he  had  moreover  the  faculty  of  bringing 
all  that  he  saw  and  heard  very  vividly  before 
our  eyes,  of  interesting  us,  almost  against  our 
will,  in  the  petty  annals  of  an  uneventful  life. 
It  is  no  more  possible  for  important  city  men, 
heads  of  banking-houses  and  hard-working 
members  of  Parliament,  to  write  letters  of  this 
kind,  than  it  is  possible  for  them  to  hold  the 
attention  of  generations,  as  Gray  so  easily 
holds  it,  with  a  few  playful  lines  of  condolence 
on  the  death  of  a  friend's  cat,  a  few  polished 
verses  set  like  jewels  in  the  delicate  filigree  of 
a  sportive  and  caressing  letter.  "  It  would  be 
a  sensible  satisfaction  to  me,"  he  writes  to 
Walpole,  "  before  I  testify  my  sorrow,  and  the 
sincere  part  I  take  in  your  misfortune,  to  know 
for  certain  who  it  is  I  lament.  I  knew  Zara 
and  Selima  (Selima,  was  it  ?  or  Fatima  ?),  or 
rather  I  knew  them  both  together ;  for  I  can 
not  justly  say  which  was  which.  Then  as  to 


LETTERS.  221 

your '  handsome  Cat,'  the  name  you  distinguish 
her  by,  I  am  no  less  at  a  loss,  as  well  knowing 
one's  handsome  cat  is  always  the  eat  one  loves 
best ;  or  if  one  be  alive  and  one  dead,  it  is 
usually  the  latter  which  is  the  handsomer. 
Besides,  if  the  point  were  never  so  clear,  I 
hope  you  do  not  think  me  so  ill-bred  or  so 
imprudent  as  to  forfeit  all  my  interest  in  the 
survivor.  Oh,  no !  I  would  rather  seem  to 
mistake,  and  imagine  to  be  sure  it  must  be 
the  tabby  one  that  has  met  with  this  sad 
accident." 

Labor  accomplishes  many  things  in  this 
busy,  tired  world,  and  receives  her  full  share 
of  applause  for  every  nail  she  drives.  But 
leisure  writes  the  letters;  leisure  aided  by 
observation,  and  sometimes  —  as  in  the  case 
of  Mme.  de  Sevigne  —  by  that  rare  faculty  of 
receiving  and  imparting  impressions  without 
judicial  reasoning,  by  that  winning,  unconten- 
tious  amenity  which  accepts  life  as  it  is,  and 
men  as  they  chance  to  be.  There  is  no  rancor 
in  the  light  laugh  with  which  this  charming 
Frenchwoman  greets  the  follies  and  frivolities 
of  her  day.  There  is  no  moral  protest  in 
her  amused  survey  of  that  attractive  invalid, 


222  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

Mme.  de  Brissac,  who  lies  in  bed  so  "  curled 
and  beautiful "  that  she  turns  everybody's 
head.  "  I  wish  you  could  have  seen,"  writes 
Mme.  de  Sevigne  to  her  daughter,  "the  use 
she  made  of  her  sufferings ;  of  her  eyes,  of 
her  sighs,  of  her  arms,  of  her  hands  languish 
ing  on  the  counterpane,  of  the  situation,  and 
the  compassion  she  excited.  I  was  overcome 
with  tenderness  and  admiration  as  I  gazed  on 
the  performance,  which  seemed  to  me  so  fine. 
My  riveted  attention  must  surely  have  given 
satisfaction ;  and  bear  in  mind  that  it  was  for 
the  Abbe  Bayard,  for  Saint  Kerens,  for  Mont- 
jeu  and  Plancy,  that  the  scene  was  rehearsed. 
When  I  remember  with  what  simplicity  you 
are  ill,  you  seem  to  me  a  mere  bungler  in 
comparison." 

This  is  good-natured  ridicule,  keen  but  not 
condemnatory,  without  mercy,  yet  without 
upbraiding.  Sainte-Beuve,  who  dearly  loves 
Mme.  de  Sevigne,  complains  with  reason  that 
she  is  not  even  angry  at  things  which  ought  to 
anger  her,  and  that  this  gentle  tolerance  lacks 
humanity  when  cruelty  and  wrong-doing  call 
for  denunciation.  Yet  who  can  remember  so 
long  and  tenderly  a  friend  fallen  and  dis- 


LETTERS.  223 

graced  ?  Who  can  extend  a  helping  hand  so 
frankly  to  a  fellow  mortal  ?  Who  can  love  so 
devotedly,  or  sacrifice  herself  with  such  cheer 
ful  serenity  at  the  shrine  of  her  deep  affec 
tions  ?  Her  memory  comes  down  to  us  through 
two  centuries,  enriched  with  graceful  fancies. 
We  know  her  as  one  good  and  gay,  gentle  and 
witty  and  wise,  who,  by  virtue  of  her  supreme 
and  narrowed  genius,  wrote  letters  unsur 
passed  in  literature.  "Keep  my  correspon 
dence,"  said  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu 
in  the  heyday  of  her  youth  and  pride.  "  It 
will  be  as  good  as  Mme.  de  Sevigne's,  forty 
years  hence."  But  four  times  forty  years 
have  only  served  to  widen  the  gulf  between 
these  two  writers,  and  to  place  them  in  parted 
spheres.  Their  work  springs  from  different 
sources,  and  is  as  unlike  in  inspiration  as  in 
form.  "  It  is  impossible,"  says  Sainte-Beuve, 
"  to  speak  of  women  without  first  putting  one's 
self  in  a  good  humor  by  the  thought  of  Mme. 
de  Sevigne.  With  us  moderns,  this  process 
takes  the  place  of  one  of  those  invocations  or 
libations  which  the  ancients  were  used  to  offer 
up  to  the  pure  source  of  grace."  In  the  same 
devout  spirit  I  am  glad  to  close  my  volume 


224  ESSAYS  IN  IDLENESS. 

with  a  few  words  about  this  incomparable 
letter-writer,  with  a  little  libation  poured  at  her 
shadowy  feet,  that  my  last  page  may  leave  me 
and  —  Heaven  permitting  —  my  readers  in  a 
good  humor,  cheered  by  the  pleasant  memories 
which  gild  a  passing  hour. 


